Graphing Baby: New Apps for Parents

Sleep Telemetry chart by Trixie Tracker

Shortly after my first child was born, I discovered a web site called The Trixie Update. Here a stay-at-home dad (Ben MacNeill) shared updates of his baby (Trixie), including everything from exact sleep and wake hours to the number of diaper changes. Although I read a lot of books prior to the arrival of my daughter, she was born with some complications that threw me for a loop, and in the end I felt wholly unprepared. As I tried to keep track of feedings, sleep schedules and diaper changes on my own in Excel, I was entertained by the data points and graphs that Mr. MacNeill produced by vigilantly recording his baby's activities. The Trixie Update gave me a sense that I wasn't alone in this new world of parenthood.

That was 2004. Mr. MacNeill has since launched an app that helps all parents keep track of their baby's activities. Called The Trixie Tracker, the product web site says that "Our parents and caregivers have recorded 3.5 million naps, diapers and bottles."

The Trixie Tracker was recently featured in an article called The Data-Driven Parent in The Atlantic Monthly (by Mya Frazier). This and other products, like Baby Connect, Total Baby, Baby Log, iBabyLog, Evoz, and the Bedtime app by Johnson's Baby, have made "parenthood a more quantifiable, science-based endeavor. Forthcoming versions of baby-data apps are poised to bring even more dramatic change, allowing parents to compare their child with other children in great detail."

By using these products, parents can compare their baby's stats with those of thousands of other babies. It can bring relief to overwhelmed parents when they see that their baby falls in the middle of the curve. As Frazier says, "What remains to be seen is whether this new trove of information will reduce the anxieties of early parenthood or, by allowing constant, nervous comparisons, bring them into sharper relief."

One question that I have about these products is the level of privacy that they can afford. No doubt some of them have a way to connect to social networking sites to share baby's information with the world. And parents need to thoughtfully consider what kind of record (if any) that they want to create and share when it comes to their child.

Now that I'm an experienced parent, I realize that I could have relaxed a lot more, and that I did just fine without graphing my child. But had these products been around when my children were babies, I probably would have used one of them. Perhaps tracking diaper changes and feedings would have given me the sense that I was doing something that could help identify causes for concern early when in truth I often felt helpless. And it might have given me a small sense of community with other parents that I didn't have before. Of course, nothing could have replaced my meetups with other new parents and good old-fashioned advice from Grandma.

Facebook and Your Baby: The Oversharing Dilemma

Kudos to Steven Leckart for his Wall Street Journal article entitled, "The Facebook-Free Baby." Leckart questions the practice of parents "oversharing" information about their babies and young kids, and chooses not to share photos of his young son publicly. He writes:

Two decades ago, parents began registering domains named for their kids. Today, they register Facebook profiles for their unborn children, and even write status updates in first person. Similarly, parents set up Twitter accounts for their infants, and send tweets on their baby's behalf. Messages I've seen range from the banal ("Ate. Slept. Pooped.") to the more self-conscious: "Thanks to social media my day wearing a bear suit will live on to inspire future generations...and embarrass me as a teenager."

But what's wrong with sharing photos through social networks with only your 300 or so of your closest friends? Leckart says,

Although privacy settings allow us to control which circle(s) of friends has access to parts of our profiles, many people either don't understand how to use them or prefer not to. Plus, like record labels and print publishers, parents are discovering that once content becomes digital, it can be easily copied and redistributed willy-nilly (hello, grandparents!). The result: photos of kids in compromising, colorful circumstances, and status updates recounting even more compromising, colorful circumstances, intended for a select few, are now spread out over the Web for everyone.

I've actually thought about this a great deal. While it's nice to share pictures of the baby with grandparents and friends, when does it become a matter of "oversharing?" One of my children is, by nature, very shy and shuns attention. Will she appreciate a record of embarrassing pictures and her silly sayings when she's older? As she grows into adulthood, will new friends, partners or prospective employes have an easy way to research her every waking moment as a kid? Only time can tell what social networks may do with their information someday.

In the end, I think that creating a permanent online record is something that a child should decide once she comes of age. For now, I get along very well by sharing pictures through a private SmugMug or Shutterfly gallery.  And I prefer to talk about our family events and cute sayings during my phone conversations with extended family and friends. Thankfully, my husband feels the same way. While we're extremely proud parents, we prefer to keep our private lives private, and protect the identity of our children while they're young. They may thank us one day.

Thoughts For Mothers Day

I'm exhausted. I over-scheduled myself this week. Somehow within a span of seven days I did the following: took a final exam, took a flight see my grandparents, went on an all-day school field trip with each kid, and drove the kids to piano practice, soccer practice, and a doctor's appointment. In between I managed to do laundry, wash the dishes, keep the kids fed, and keep up with my job. And now I'm supposed to pack for another trip. We're leaving to visit my mother-in-law for Mother's Day first thing in the morning.

I've noticed that no where on that list is something that I did for myself. In fact, I ditched a few of my own plans in favor of doing for others. I'm not complaining, and I'm not bragging, either. Moms do it all the time. We have moments when we burn the candle at both ends until the light nearly goes out.

In the midst of today's rush, I noted an email that came in from MissRepresentation.org, an organization that sheds light on the imbalanced portrayal of women and girls in the media. The theme of the email was Mother's Day, and it referenced a piece by founder Jennifer Siebel Newsom written for the International Museum of Women.

Citing the inequitable pay gap between men and women, the pay gap between childless women and working women, and the hardships of single motherhood, she writes:

The feminists before me fought for my right to vote, to work and to have more choices than they had. Yet we are all still strapped with an extremely heavy and unfair burden.  Because despite all of the progress we have made, women are still expected to be the primary caretakers of the young and old, while continuing to manage the home and their careers.  And you don’t want to get me started on the expectations for how women are supposed to look!  It’s unhealthy to idolize the “Wonder Woman” phenomena – the mythic woman who can do it all to perfection.  She does not exist and never will.  And, it’s extremely dangerous that we think we can be her.

...Overall, we are not only harming ourselves but the collective female population by staying small, not believing in ourselves, and not demanding the support we want and need to succeed.  

Yikes! Guilty.

It's clear that being a mother is hard work. Not just because we are parenting our children, but because we parent through other enormous responsibilities. It seems the definition of parenthood often carries much greater weight when it attached to a mother than to a father.

Yes, it's unfair, I'd like to see changes, and I don't know what the answer is. (Siebel Newsom offers some interesting suggestions.) I do know that being an attentive and caring mother is both a privilege and a sacrifice, and its a role that moms around the world take seriously. As Thomas Paine said so long ago, "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph... What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value."

So we honor our mothers because we value their efforts. I'm far from perfect, but I do the best I can for my kids every day. My mother gave me that same gift a generation ago. Now that I'm a mother, I can see her efforts for what they were. Not just something she was supposed to do, but something she did out of love every day, the best she knew how. And she likely did it because her mother did the same for her. Mothering is a gift given daily. And I thank my mother and grandmother for it. And I'll hit the road tomorrow and thank my mother-in-law, too.

Facebook and Loneliness: Chicken or Egg?

Facebook Home Page

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? is a fascinating article by Stephen Marche in the May 2012 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. A brief summary: Facebook, and other social networks, have come during a time when people report feeling more lonely than ever. Researchers have found that heavy users of Facebook are lonelier (and correspondingly more narcissistic) than people who don't use Facebook as often. But the general belief is that the technology isn't making us lonely, it's the way that humans use it.

The article is so well-written that I prefer to use direct quotes (in blue) than to use my own words any further. A few interesting points:

Our society is lonelier than in the past.

A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier. According to a major study by a leading scholar of the subject, roughly 20 percent of Americans—about 60 million people—are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.

The mean size of networks of personal confidants decreased from 2.94 people in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant.

Loneliness has physical ramifications

Being lonely is extremely bad for your health. If you’re lonely, you’re more likely to be put in a geriatric home at an earlier age than a similar person who isn’t lonely. You’re less likely to exercise. You’re more likely to be obese. You’re less likely to survive a serious operation and more likely to have hormonal imbalances. You are at greater risk of inflammation. Your memory may be worse. You are more likely to be depressed, to sleep badly, and to suffer dementia and general cognitive decline.

Facebook users and the loneliness connection

Facebook users had slightly lower levels of “social loneliness”—the sense of not feeling bonded with friends—but “significantly higher levels of family loneliness”—the sense of not feeling bonded with family. It may be that Facebook encourages more contact with people outside of our household, at the expense of our family relationships—or it may be that people who have unhappy family relationships in the first place seek companionship through other means, including Facebook. The researchers also found that lonely people are inclined to spend more time on Facebook...

[Researcher Cacioppo says] “The greater the proportion of face-to-face interactions, the less lonely you are... The greater the proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.” 

Does Facebook make us lonely, or are we using Facebook (and other social networks) because we are lonely?

Loneliness is certainly not something that Facebook or Twitter or any of the lesser forms of social media is doing to us. We are doing it to ourselves. Casting technology as some vague, impersonal spirit of history forcing our actions is a weak excuse. We make decisions about how we use our machines, not the other way around.

Our omnipresent new technologies lure us toward increasingly superficial connections at exactly the same moment that they make avoiding the mess of human interaction easy. The beauty of Facebook, the source of its power, is that it enables us to be social while sparing us the embarrassing reality of society—the accidental revelations we make at parties, the awkward pauses, the farting and the spilled drinks and the general gaucherie of face-to-face contact.  

Sherry Turkle, a professor of computer culture at MIT who in 1995 published the digital-positive analysis Life on the Screen, is much more skeptical about the effects of online society in her 2011 book, Alone Together: “These days, insecure in our relationships and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.” The problem with digital intimacy is that it is ultimately incomplete:

Connection between Facebook and narcissism

The Australian study “Who Uses Facebook?” found a significant correlation between Facebook use and narcissism: “Facebook users have higher levels of total narcissism, exhibitionism, and leadership than Facebook nonusers,” the study’s authors wrote. “In fact, it could be argued that Facebook specifically gratifies the narcissistic individual’s need to engage in self-promoting and superficial behavior.” 

The final word

What Facebook has revealed about human nature—and this is not a minor revelation—is that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left thinking about who we are all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.

The phenomenon of Facebook and other social networks may provide a way to either bolster personal connections (organize a party, for example) or disengage from meaningful relationships. It's all in how the tools are used. Understanding this can help parents educate their kids as they enter into the realm of social networking.

Parent Questions "Racy" Photos

John Rosemond is a popular psychologist, syndicated columnist, and parenting expert. I don't know much about him and his beliefs, but I recently found an interesting column by him in the Charlotte Observer. A concerned mother writes to John that she's found "racy photos" of women on her teenage son's cell phone. Her husband wants to ignore it, and she wants to talk about it. John sides with the mother, and answers:

The door is open for your husband to sit down with his son and give him some fundamental instruction concerning the opposite sex: call it Women 101.

He could begin this mentoring by helping your son begin to understand that thinking of women as mere sexual objects is a form of disrespect; that anatomical attributes are not the measure of a woman; that while good looks are not a bad thing, the real prize is a woman who is a wonderful wife and mother, a woman, in other words, whose beauty goes deeper than her skin. There’s an opening here for your husband to help his son begin the journey to valid manhood. He should seize it!

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/02/3145166/john-rosemond-racy-photos-mean.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

I found this response very wise, and it sounded as if it was written from a woman's point of view!

I remember when the Internet was relatively new, and how disturbed I was when the men at work congregated together at a computer to ogle over pornographic images. It was my first realization that with all the positive changes that the Internet was bringing, there were also going to be some big problems.

In the digital world today, pornography and "racy photos" are certainly continuing to degrade society's belief that women are sexual objects with little other value. In my talks with two experienced elementary school teachers, they have seen boys as young as fourth grade know how to navigate the web to get pornographic images - using school computers. I'm of the belief that this exposure, and the continuation of this practice, will be very harmful to boys and their future relationships with women, to say nothing of how it is hurting our broader culture.

On the PsychCentral blog, Robert Weiss, an expert in sexual dysfunctions, writes:

It appears that the tsunami of accessible, affordable, and increasingly graphic Internet pornography accessed via home computers, laptops, smart-phones and other mobile devices we now carry in our pockets can, for some, cause not only emotional, relationship, and financial problems, but also sexual dysfunction. In a way, this confirms what many in the sexual addiction treatment field have known for quite some time—that among the many symptoms and consequences of sex and porn addiction is reduced or even nonexistent interest in sexual, physical, and emotional connections with spouses and/or longer-term sexual partners. 

All kinds of relationships, including marriages and families, can be harmed by Internet porn. Unfortunately, protecting kids from the effects of porn may be a very hard-fought battle. It may be easier for some parents to ignore the issue. But because of the real and potential psychological risks, parents need to be vigilant, be aware that it's easy for kids to find graphic sexual images, and take every opportunity to communicate personal values when issues like this come up at home.

Social Networks Provide New Ways to Study People

I took a short trip over the weekend to visit my grandparents. (Although it's off topic, I'm compelled to write that Grandma and Grandpa must be two of the finest people ever.) I read a lot in the airport and on the plane, which is something I don't do enough of these days. Two of the publications I read included the latest issues of the Atlantic Monthly and Scientific American: Mind, and they provided a lot of ideas for this blog.

To ease into the week, I'll start with the shortest article that I wanted to comment about. Written by Janelle Weaver in Scientific American: Mind, the piece summarizes a study by researchers at Cornell University, who studied posts Twitter posts all over the world. Their findings show that people are happier in the morning and as the day wears on, good moods go downhill. Interestingly, results are the same on the weekend, but the "bad mood" effect is delayed by about two hours. The data "suggest that sleep schedules strongly influence mood cycles."

The findings of this study are not hard to believe. It feels like the correlation between moods and sleep cycles is experienced in our home frequently. My kids and I don't necessarily get grumpier, but we can get more anxious and more emotional as the day wears on. At young elementary school ages, tears are far more likely to happen just before bed. When I was a new parent, I learned quickly that my baby needed a nap when she got fussy and inconsolable. A good night's sleep helps my outlook on life tremendously. Perhaps as adults we still have that innate tendency to experience negative feelings if we're sleepy, but we can just express our feelings in more mature ways.

I'd be curious to know if the researchers considered the reality of a person's mood and what the person actually tweets about. I'll share another article that suggests that people tend to portray a happier self than how they actually feel. If that's the case, bad moods in this study could be that much worse!

One angle about the study that I find fascinating is that the researchers say:

...that the rising popularity of online social media is allowing scientists to study human behavior in surprising new ways.

This is a use of social media that could prove to be very enlightening. And perhaps something that a layperson could do. Hmmm... Maybe I'll run a study using my Facebook friends as subjects. Another blog post idea in the making.

Think Pink? Think Again.

Products by Estee Lauder

Last night I attended a screening and discussion of the movie Pink Ribbons, Inc. I attended partially because I want to host a screening of the films Consuming Kids and Miss Representation, both related to my adopted cause of understanding the impact of today's media on kids, and I was interested in what it takes to organize such an event.

The Pink Ribbons event in Charlotte, NC was very well-done, and well-attended. But what also struck me were the messages in the movie. Here's what I took away from this powerful film:

* The "pink ribbons" campaign for breast cancer was largely developed by corporations who wanted a new way to sell products to a huge target market: women. After all, women make 80% of the buying decisions in the home (Bloomberg BusinessWeek). We can now buy anything in pink, from hand guns to teddy bears. Unfortunately, often only pennies (sometimes exactly one penny) of the sales actually fund breast cancer research.

* The color pink was adopted as part of the brand based on PR focus groups, which suggested that women like the color pink, and find it cheerful, happy, and warm. Unfortunately, many breast cancer victims do not feel like this represents the truth behind the horrific disease.

* Many of the largest sponsors behind the Komen Foundation and other breast cancer research funding actually use known carcinogens in their products. Ford, Estee Lauder, Avon and Yopait were among the worst offenders.

* Many women without a family history of breast cancer think that they are safe, but in fact around 70% of breast cancers are found in women with no family history of the disease. And although taking care of your physical health through diet an exercise are important, the link between this and the disease is not concrete. Healthy women get breast cancer, too.

* Although evidence points to our environment as a major cause of breast cancer, very little money is allocated to researching environmental causes. In fact, at the time the movie was released, only 5% of research money goes to funding these studies. And only about 15% of money is directed toward prevention. The point to this is that donors should demand accountability for the money that they give and raise. Decide where your money should go. Demand that more money be spent finding the cause of breast cancer, which could save additional lives. As one physician in the movie put it, we just don't know the cause of the disease. "We're missing something big," she says.

The movie just made me want to throw all of my cosmetics and food in the garbage, and start over from scratch. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy all organic food and personal care products. So now I'm caught. If the odds of getting breast cancer in 1940 were one in 20, and now the chances are one in 8, what will the odds be for my kids when they get older?

Like my concerns with the media and our kids' psychological health, I'm also concerned with physical health. Is it me, or is it harder to be a parent these days, with such gloomy statistics and so many conflicting and confusing media messages?

Pink Ribbons, Inc. was a very compelling movie. Its messages are very much worth listening to.

Marriages and Social Media: What is Unfair to Share?

I find it fascinating to think about the affects that social networking has on our everyday relationships, including marriages. Spouses can declare their love for each other, complain about each other, and outright fight - all without being in close proximity.

A recent New York Times piece by Laura M. Holson calls social networking a "new source of online friction" for some couples, and begs the question, "what is fair game for sharing with the world?"

If one half of a couple is not interested in broadcasting the details of a botched dinner or romantic weekend, Facebook postings or tweets can create irritation, embarrassment, miscommunication and bruised egos.

Couples may benefit from having a discussion about what is acceptable online behavior when it comes to the relationship. Is it OK to sharing embarrassing photos, complain about one another, brag (or gripe) about finances, or comment about a spouses' medical procedure? Is one-half of the couple extra sensitive about jokes made using him as subject matter? Can you trust the other person to keep private matters private? What happens if the relationship ends bitterly, and your former significant other wants to ruin your reputation using social networks as a platform?

An earlier article in the New York Times investigated what relationship spats look like on Facebook.

For most couples, the temptation to publicly slander each other is overpowered by the instinct to prove to their friends how happy they are, reality notwithstanding. But for others, arguing in front of others comes as naturally as slamming doors.

And as it relates to marriage and social networking, Michael Vincent Miller, psychologist and author of “Intimate Terrorism: The Crisis of Love in an Age of Disillusion” says:

Today, popular representations of marriage tend toward “two very self-protective egos at war with one another... each wanting vindication and to be right by showing that the other is wrong.”

I've seen Facebook relationship statuses change from "married" to "single," and I know immediately when some friends suddenly head for divorce. Online bickering is a little awkward for me, as a friend of the couple (please don't expect me to comment or take sides). I've seen online love declarations, and I wondered if it feels easier to say "I love you," on a social network than in person.

Thankfully, my husband and I both shy away from sharing much on Facebook, and we don't belong to any other social networks except LinkedIn, which is certainly not the forum to share personal thoughts, feelings and disagreements. We probably don't work on our marriage like we should, but at least we don't have to worry about throwing online drama into the mix.

I also wonder about what's in store for my kids. Hopefully they'll be seasoned enough to understand the risks of sharing relationship details via social networks. I hope they'll be able to have candid discussions with a boyfriend or spouse about expected online behavior, or at least have thick enough skin to deal with online mishaps or breaks in trust. Responsible online behavior will likely have to be a criteria for selecting a partner...as if there needed to be anything else added to the list.

Padded Bras for Girls: What's The Message?

Girls' padded bras for sale at
Kohl's Department Store

While shopping at our local Kohl's, I found this display in the children's section. Yes, these are rows upon rows of padded bras. Surprised? It's not just Kohl's. I've also noticed similar trends in other girls' clothing stores, like the popular tween retailer, Justice.

Snapping a picture of the bras with my cell phone, my blood pressure went up. I have so many issues with this. And questions, too. Why do stores push the notion that young girls should artificially enlarge their breasts? Just who is benefiting from the girls wearing these bras? Do girls feel more popular and well-liked if their breasts appear larger than they really are? Are manufacturers making these bras, and the retailers selling them, because they are actually in demand? Apparently the answer to that last question is "yes."

But it's not just about the bras. Look at any girls clothing store, and you can see short skirts, short shorts, skinny jeans, skimpy bikinis and bare midriff shirts all marketed for kids. And while my beef with clothing may technically fall outside the "media and family" theme of my blog, I think it relates with the messages that the mainstream media sends to all of us about young girls and women. After all, the media promotes fashion, trends and ideas about body image, and those ideas eventually translate into product sales.

Girls are particularly vulnerable to messages that they see in the media. According to Miss Representation.org, "three out of four teenage girls feel depressed, guilty and shameful after spending three minutes leafing through a fashion magazine." But perhaps more important are the messages that girls receive at home. Does mom worry incessantly about her looks, or does she model a healthy, and happy, view of herself? Does dad criticize mom's or daughter's body, or is he accepting and encouraging? Do mom and dad endorse purchases of short skirts and padded bras prematurely?

We may not be able to change the world, or how the world grades girls' bodies, but we can make a difference at home. Through sensible purchases, candid discussions, and a loving and accepting environment in which girls can be girls, we can help our daughters develop at their own pace, discovering that they have value beyond their appearance.

7 Educational Apps for Kids

Bugs and Buttons by
Little Bit Studio, LLC

To supplement the list of apps that I've been sharing on reading, math, science, social studies, art and music, here is a list of general educational apps for young kids. Again, these apps are recommended by a private school in Knoxville, Tennessee.

These are all apps designed for young kids, and it makes me wonder if any iPad time is helpful for kids' learning in the long run. If they play educational games now, will they be smarter than their peers in college? Do better on their ACT scores than they would otherwise?

My family doesn't have an iPad. I think the kids can benefit from it, but I'm in no rush while they are still ages six and seven. Any thoughts? If you do have an iPad, don't forget to set screen-time limits for your kids, even for educational use. Enjoy! These apps look fun!

1. Bugs and Buttons by Little Bit Studio, LLC
2. Super Why for iPad by PBS Kids
3. TeachMe: Kindergarten by 24x7digital LLC
4. TeachMe: First Grade by 24x7 digital LLC
5. See.Touch.Learn by Brain Parade
6. Brain POP Featured Movie by BrainPOP
7. Puppet Pals HD by Polished Play, LLC

One more thing. Don't forget that this week is Screen-Free Week! It's a wonderful chance to put down the devices, turn off the TV, and interact as a family.

Seven Arts and Music Apps for Kids

Doodle Buddy by
Pinger, Inc.

Here is a list of arts and music apps for kids that may inspire creativity at home, as shared with me by a private school in Knoxville, Tennessee.

As always, I recommend sharing the experience with your little ones and setting screen-time limits. These apps may be fun, but there is still no substitute for imaginary play!

Arts
1. Glow Coloring by MobiTech 3000 LLC
2. Learn to Draw Digital Sketchbook by Walter Foster
3. Doodle Buddy by Pinger, Inc.
4. Painting with Time by Red Hill Studios


Music
5. Virtuoso Piano Free by Peter Nagy
6. Garage Band by Apple

Movies

7. iMovie by Apple

Nine Animal and Social Studies Apps for Kids

National Geographic Kids app
by National Geographic Society

Continuing with my posts that share educational apps for kids, here is a list of apps that help little ones learn about animal studies and social studies. My girls would especially love the animal apps! In fact, listing all of these apps all week have made me want to buy an iPad!

In my search, I did see that some of these apps are available for Droid phones, and the National Geographic Kids web site is pretty interactive, too. So these ideas might be helpful for those of us without iPads and iPhones too!

1. ZooZooSafari by Zoo Zoo Interactive
2. Animal Sounds by Innovative Mobile Apps
3. National Geographic Kids by National Geographic Society
4. History: Maps of World by Seung-Bin Cho
5. Shake the States by Third Chicken Incorporated
6. Stack the States by Dan Russell-Pinson
7. Stack the Countries by Dan Russell-Pinson
8. Today in History by Down-Shift Inc.
9. Animals Sounds HD by Sifusan

By the way, Seaworld.com has a lot of great information about marine animals, too!

A Must Read: The Flight from Conversation

Photographs by Peter DaSilva and
Byron Smith, for The New York Times

Please read The Flight From Conversation, an article in the New York Times by Sherry Turkle, psychologist and professor at MIT. Turkle observes that although people are substituting frequent, but brief, online conversations for meaningful face-to-face conversations, with the overall end result of feeling more lonely, and disconnected, than ever.

An excerpt from the article related to parenting and children:

We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true. If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely. If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely.

I am a partisan for conversation. To make room for it, I see some first, deliberate steps. At home, we can create sacred spaces: the kitchen, the dining room. We can make our cars “device-free zones.” We can demonstrate the value of conversation to our children.

My home certainly doesn't have "device-free zones." I blog about this article from my laptop in the dining room. My kids are on the couch in the living room watching TV. My husband is next to them, doing work on his laptop. We are physically near each other, but not connected. Of course, this is not the norm. Or is it? I'm not sure.

This article gets to the heart of my concerns about our digital lives affecting the well-being of our marriages, families, or other relationships. A summary on my part wouldn't do it justice. The piece should be read in full. And reread. We should all contemplate how we want to purposefully model and manage our digital lives for the sake of our own selves and for our children.

17 Math Apps for Kids

Numbers and Numbers Words
Matching Game by
Good Neighbor Press, Inc.

Continuing with my posts this weeks about apps for kids, here is a list of recommended math apps. These were all recommended by the private school in Knoxville, Tennessee that I referenced before. Some of these look so fun. Hopefully these apps will help your little ones grow their interest and confidence in math!

Although these links lead to the iTunes site for download to an iPad or iPhone, some of them come in other formats. Try searching for the app and manufacturer name to get their web sites.

And if you'd like more information about a certain app before you download and/or purchase (some of these are free), don't forget the app reviews by Common Sense Media.

1. Snowman Math (Santa's Christmas Village) by EnsenaSoft
2. Adventures Undersea Math by Brain Counts
3. Memory Train by Piikea St. LLC
4. Coin Math by Recession Apps
5. 10 Frame Fill by Classroom Focused Software
6. Approach to Montessori Math by Rantek Inc.
7. Everyday Math, a suite of apps, by McGraw-Hill School Education Group
8. Rocket Math by Dan Russell-Pinson
9. Math Puppy by Kids Games Club
10. Motion Math Zoom by Motion Math
11. Quick Graph by Colombiamug
12. Math Drills Lite by Instant Interactive
13. Convert Units for Free HD by Free the Apps!
14. Numbers and Numbers Words Matching Game by Good Neighbor Press, Inc.
15. Painting with Time by Red Hill Studios
16. Monkey Time by Brian West
17. Moofy Recognizing Patterns Games by Playsmart-Kids

20 Science Apps for Kids

Leafsnap Screen Shot by
Columbia U., U. of MD, and
Smithsonian Institution

Yesterday I shared 20 apps that help kids with reading, phonics, and other language arts. Today, I'll include 20 science apps for kids! The apps were recommended to parents by a private school in Knoxville, Tennessee. I can't say I've tried any of them yet, except I do have Google Earth on my Droid phone, and it's very cool!

The links shared below go to the iTunes web site for information and download. If you don't have an iPad or iPhone (like me), try running a search to see if these products have a version for different systems and gadgets, or even if they can be used through a traditional web browser.

For reviews and parent comments regarding popular apps, see Common Sense Media.

Enjoy sharing science with your kids!

1. SimplePhysics by Andrew Garrison *
2. Clean Energy Hawaii HD by NSC Partners LLC
3. How it Works by Imagine Publishing
4. Science Fun To Go by SachManya LLC
5. Murky Reef by Frolyc
6. Bobo Explores Light by Game Collage, LLC
7. CompassApp by Greenality Limited
8. Star Walk by Vito Technology Inc.
9. The Magic School Bus: Oceans by Scholastic Inc.
10. LeafSnap by Columbia University, University of Maryland and Smithsonian Institution
11. NASA App by NASA Ames Research Center
12. Science 360 by National Science Foundation
13. Periodic Table of the Elements by Kevin Neelands
14. The Elementals by The Angry Robot Zombie Factory
15. GoSkyWatch Planetarium by GoSoftWorks
16. 3D Brain by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
17. Molecules by Sunset Lake Software
18. Vernier Video Physics by Vernier Software and Technology
19. TED by TED Conferences *
20. Google Earth by Google 

* Rated for ages nine and up

20 Apps that Help Kids Learn to Read

Screen shot from the
Starfall ABC's app

I've been sharing a lot of cautionary information about the use of media and technology lately. The last thing I want to do with my blog is to suggest that I think families should live in a bubble, giving up screens and media exposure altogether. For the vast majority of us, that is impractical, impossible, and not very much fun. Although I believe strongly that parents need to manage family screen time, kids absolutely need to be technologically savvy to be competitive in school and in the future job market.

To that end, here is a list of apps for the iPad, smart phones and other gadgets that can help preschoolers and young elementary kids with reading, letter recognition, phonics and foreign languages. These apps were recommended to parents by a private school in Knoxville, Tennessee. I can't personally vouch for these programs, except for Starfall. My kids used the program through a traditional web browser both at home and at school. It's great!

Most of these links go to Apple's iTunes web site for information and download. If you don't have an iPad or iPhone, run an online search for the program or its manufacturer. Some of these apps may come in different formats, like DVDs, CDs, or programs for Droid phones and other gadgets.

Interested in reviews and comments about apps from other parents? See the Common Sense Media web site, where they have reviewed several popular apps, sharing the good and the not-so-good.

1. Phonics Easy Reader 1 by Rock N/ Learn
2. Word Ball Free by Continuous Integration Apps
3. ABC Tracer by App-Zoo
4. Shape-O ABC's by Bellamon
5. ABC Go! by Peapod Labs LLC
6. Alphabytes by WFH Interactive
7. Interactive Alphabet - ABC Flashcards by Piikea St. LLC
8. ABC Food by Peapod Labs LLC
9. Starfall ABC's by Starfall Education
10. ABC Alphabet Phonics by GrasshopperApps.com
11. Futaba by INKids
12. ABC 123 Blocks by Playtend Apps LLP
13. ABC and Me by Muon Van
14. Sight Words List by Innovative Mobile Apps
15. Living Language - Spanish by Random House Digital, Inc.
16. Grammar Express - Parts of Speech by Eknath Kadam
17. Alphabet Tracing by Oncilla Technologies, Inc.
18. iTranslate by SonicoGmbH
19. Comic Life by plasq LLC
20. ABC Alphabet Soup by RoDen Apps

Happy learning!

Kids Interrupted: The Price of Losing Concentration

As a mother, one of my biggest challenges is to finish anything - a thought, a task, or a conversation - before I get interrupted by my sweet, but eager, children. When the kids go to school, it takes real effort to focus on one work project without getting interrupted by email, phone calls, or the temptation to check the latest news stories. Successful concentration and efficiently finishing a task is sometimes hard to come by.

Of course, parents aren't the only ones that have a hard time concentrating. Kids, teenagers, and even babies don't focus well in certain environments. According to the International Communication Association and a report from WebMD, babies and kids ages eight months to eight years who are exposed to large amounts of background TV are at a disadvantage. Their mental tasks are often interrupted by the background sights and sounds, and this, in turn, can lead to language and academic problems.

As I wrote last week, teenagers who allow social technology like Facebook and texting to interrupt them during study time are likely to get lower grades than those who don't. Checking Facebook even just one time per fifteen minutes will likely result in lower grades. (See Facebook: Friend or Foe? by the American Psychological Association.)

Even kids' sleep can be interrupted. Blue lights from computers, TVs, wireless modems, and other gadgets can interfere with sleep (WebMD.com). TV can disturb preschoolers' sleep, depending on the timing and nature of the television program (CNN.com). And being "overwired" in general, through excessive use of video games, cell phones, and Internet use, can cause a child to lose a good night's sleep (Minneapolis Star Tribune).

Continuous breaks in concentration may be detrimental. Some Harvard scientists have even suggested that they are seeing evidence of "shorter attention spans influenced by technology and the constant waves of information washing over us." (The Seattle Times)  This leads to an interesting question: is technology distracting us, or are we to blame for allowing the distraction? David Levy, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Information, points out that its not helpful to think of technology as the perpetrator when it comes to our concentration problems. It's all in how we as a society, and as individuals, use it and allow it to disrupt our tasks.

There are many unanswered questions about how our use of technology interrupts our thought processes and tasks. Psychologists and other social scientists are constantly looking for answers. Regardless of what they discover, managing our family's screen time, background TV, and other distractions can be something very worthwhile to focus on.

Amatuer Movie Review - Marley & Me: The Puppy Years

We watched the movie Marley & Me: The Puppy Years last night with the kids. It's been reviewed through Common Sense Media, a good source for movie reviews from the eyes of parents. The site shares that although the movie has a "paper-thin plot" and a few insulting words and dog fart jokes, the message of the movie - being responsible when taking care of a pet - is a good one.

All of that is true, and I want to add to the review. The movie was far from stimulating to adults, but my kids loved the movie. They laughed all the way through it, and were touched when the main character proved to his mom that he was responsible enough to handle his own pet. In fact, that was my six year-old's favorite part of the movie.

There were a few subtle messages not mentioned in the movie review that I want to point out. Since beginning this blog, I've learned a little bit about the imbalance of women and girls portrayed in movies. So I watched Marley & Me: The Puppy Years with new eyes. Most of the leading characters were male. The female characters were like the movie plot: paper thin. There was a female puppy that worried about chipping her nails and disliked the color choices of an agility course ("It needs more pink!"). A girl that befriends the main character wears extremely tight and short shorts in her opening scene. Although the boy's mother has an important job, she proves to be a complete ditz. Finally, the team of bad guys includes a token female that only serves food, irons, and dusts quietly in the background.

I've also recently learned to pay more attention to the commercialization of kids through the media. This movie is not short on movie plugs. Coca-Cola, Sheraton hotels, Spam and Nike are all promoted heavily. Kids may not notice the use of name brands in the movie, but the seeds for brand recognition are definitely planted.

Overall, there was a positive message that inspired a good conversation between me and my kids (they want a dog), and they were truly entertained by a movie without violence, foul language and romantic themes. But if I were making the movie, I would change a few things, including giving a female a more important, or at least a more intelligent, role. I give the movie one thumb up.

Divorcing Facebook...and Other Thoughts

Shy with big hair...
before Facebook

I'm not a Facebook fan. I have an account, but I rarely use it anymore. At the beginning of my relationship with Facebook, I was thrilled. It was exciting to connect with old friends and acquaintances that I might have otherwise lost touch with completely. But now, several years later, the thrill is gone.

I guess I look at it like this: no one truly cares what I eat for breakfast, if I have a flat tire, my political opinions on taxes, or if I'm having a bad hair day. And Facebook friends: I'm not impressed with the mundane details of your lives, either.

Sorry for the indifference, but I don't want to know when your husband leaves the toilet seat up. I also don't pretend that my young kids will laugh good-naturedly when they find out that I once shared pictures of them in the bathtub with 269 of my closest virtual friends.

Most of my younger "friends" choose to ignore spelling rules, post cryptic messages that I can't decipher, and sandwich every word with expletives. It drives me crazy. One 13 year-old I know posts dark and depressing poetry when she has an argument with her boyfriend. I have the urge to tattle on her.

My mother is the only person I dare bore with my vacation pictures because she's good at pretending she's interested. And I much prefer catching up with my true friends and relatives by phone or over coffee. Like my real world personality, I'm just not that extroverted online.

But it appears that most teenagers feel differently than my 40 year-old self. They can't get enough of constant digital communication. "Young kids look at technology the way I look at air," says Larry D. Rosen, PhD and researcher of teens and social networks. "It's not just a tool to them, they sleep with it, they wake up with it, and it's part of their world."

But this love affair with social media, and Facebook in particular, has its consequences. Here are some excerpts from an American Psychological Association report on Rosen's research:

• Students who flipped back and forth between studying and [Facebook and text] distractions had worse grades than those who stuck to their schoolwork until they were finished.
• Those who used more hours of media were more unhealthy across the board, from elementary school age through high school, said Rosen. They reported more sick days, more stomach aches, more depression and worse behavior in school. "You name it, [they had] more of it," he said.
• Frequent Facebook use among teens correlates...with narcissism, but for young adults, it correlates with signs of many disorders, including narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

There is, however, a possible positive to Facebook use among teenagers. According to Rosen. "...Young adults who spend more time on Facebook than their peers are also better at showing 'virtual empathy' to their online friends and that such online empathy predicts real-world empathy."

Hmmm... maybe virtual empathy is something that I should work on.

To Rosen, parents make the difference between kids that have issues related to Facebook and those that do not. Parents that set limits for online activity and talk about potential negative outcomes have kids with less depression and more overall self-esteem. The psychologist advises that "parents should assess their child's activities on social networking sites, and discuss removing inappropriate content or connections to people who appear problematic. Parents also need to pay attention to the online trends and the latest technologies, websites and applications children are using."

I plan to set limits with my own kids once they become interested in social networking. Thankfully, they're too young to care about Facebook right now. In the meantime, I'll summon the courage to say goodbye to my 269 friends and divorce myself of the site.

It's not that I have a bad attitude about social networking. It can be useful if you're promoting something (a business or a cause-related blog for example). I just don't feel the need to promote my personal life. So I won't miss the old college photos that friends have scanned and posted. (I still haven't thought of an appropriate rationalization for the size of my hair!) I won't miss the online game invitations, the phony quizzes that people take about me, and most of all, the purposeful use of bad grammar. I doubt that Facebook will miss me.

Of Mazdas and Loraxes

Source: Campaign for a
Commercial-Free Childhood

Many of us are familiar with the children's movie The Lorax, based on a Dr. Seuss book and a giant stab at corporate greed and its destruction of the environment. The biggest of ironies is that the movie has more than 70 corporate and nonprofit sponsors from IHOP to HP to Mazda.

Through cross-marketing with the movie, Mazda is promoting its 2013 CX-3 to children. We all know that kids don't have drivers licenses, but they do have the keys to their parents' wallets.

Representatives for the company - and the movie - are hosting events at schools called "Read Across America Tour - Driven by Mazda." At participating schools, kids are treated to a book reading by a costumed Lorax (giant movie plug), and an up-close viewing of two different Mazda vehicles (giant car sales plug). Schools get a $1,000 check for their participation, in addition to $25 for every kid that persuades a parent that takes a test drive of the Mazda SUV - which, by the way, is entirely fueled by gasoline. (See The Horrible Marketing Campaign For The Lorax Just Gets Worse, a report by FastCompany.)

This is outrageous.

How is it that corporations can masquerade as do-gooders for our schools, when the reality is their motives are less than pure? This is a blatant marketing campaign targeted at kids in an environment where they should focus on the task at hand (education) and where they should be free from targeted advertising.

This story reminds me of an annual fundraising event that comes to our elementary school every September. It's called the Boosterthon Fun Run. Although reportedly the highest-grossing fundraiser our school has, the strategy of the program is to tempt kids with cheap toys to talk their parents and grandparents into donating money. Every morning during the week of the event, the Fun Run staff walks from room-to-room, awarding prizes to those children who have earned pledges. Everyone else feels left out - and naturally jealous. And they go home and put more pressure on the parents. The parents, in turn, don't want the kids to feel left out and jealous, and they (we) pony up more money. After the kids run their laps, they get the equivalent of a plastic ball for a $100 donation. And the Fun Run corporation keeps nearly 50% of the proceeds. The shame of it all is that to the kids, the program is far more about the toys than it is the cause.

Through everyday marketing practices in schools, adults purposefully put kids in a social pressure cooker. And cash-strapped schools are in a tough situation, too. Those that raise more money - through using kids to sell everything from cars to movies to plastic balls, or through ads on school buses - might be more successful. Those schools that stand up against such practices may lose out financially. Which is better? I'm not sure that the kids win either way.

Babies Part of Digital World Too

Even the youngest of the bunch are not immune to the effects of media and screens. In fact, babies are right in the midst of the digital world.

Here are a few points about babies and media, gleaned from a variety of reputable sources:

• Children under two spend twice as much time watching TV and videos as they do reading books. (Common Sense Media)
• On a typical day, 47% of babies and toddlers ages 0 to 1 watch TV and DVDs, and those that do, spend an average of nearly two hours doing so. (Common Sense Media)
• Among children ages 6-23 months, 29% have a TV in their bedroom. (Common Sense Media)
• Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age two. A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents said their children under age 2 watch some form of electronic media. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
• For babies eight to 16 months, watching baby videos is associated with slower language development. (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood). 
• More than 80 percent of children under the age of two have a digital profile - some even before they are born - thanks to their parents. (Scholastic Parent and Child)

It appears that babies are becoming heavier users of screens every day. They have also been recognized as a target market for advertising campaigns. According to a fascinating, and sobering, Fact Sheet by Commercial-Free Childhood, "by six months, babies are forming mental images of corporate logos and mascots. According to market research, babies are requesting brands as soon as they can speak." I know that my kids learned to recognize Target and Starbucks logos at an impressively early age.

Parents of young infants is a hot target market, too. We've all heard of the Baby Einstein videos. The company received an enormous amount of heat for their claims that its videos educate babies. When my children were babies, Baby Einstein videos were a baby shower gift given with pride. And yes, I actually parked my baby in front of the tube for a short time each day. (See my first post entitled "Confession.") According to a New York Times article, one-third of babies ages six to 24 months old "owned" a Baby Einstein video in 2003. And yet most experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have stressed that no screen time is good for babies.

Out of interest, I looked at the Baby Einstein web site. Yes, the company (owned by Disney and at one-time, raking in $200 million annually) is still selling baby videos. But I noticed something else. The web site now markets "happiness" and "joy," not education. The primary products are not called DVDs, but "kits" that include a small book, a music CD and a DVD together. And additional products have been added to the inventory, including more books and toys. Nothing like a little corporate makeover. (For more information about the results of pressure against the company, see the New York Times article.)

It all boils down to the activities of parents and babies' loved ones. We're at fault "by training babies to depend on screens for entertainment and the things they sell for amusement and comfort. Before they can even ask for it, we decorate their cribs, clothing, toys and diapers with media characters and place them in front of screens at every opportunity." This is a statement from Susan Linn's book, The Case for Make Believe, and it is so well-said.

Let's pause to think before we set the baby in front of a screen or sign our baby up for an online service. We have a choice against throwing our hands up and exposing our infants to screen-time and commercialism. We should let babies be babies, having the only obligations of growing physically, developing cognitively and interacting with their loving families.