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Strollerderby
America: not doing as well as we like to think.
Save the Children just published their annual ranking of the best places in the world for mothers and “the U.S. ranked 31 out of 43 developed countries,” as LearnVest noted in a post today. They say there are four main reasons why the U.S. lags behind former Eastern Bloc territories like Lithuania, Croatia and Slovakia: Continue reading »
Don't fence me in! (Not Alfie)
Alfie Aldridge lasted a few hours on his first day of preschool before deciding he’d had enough.
The three-year-old took matters into his own hands and staged a break-out.
As the Huffington Post reports, Alfie, of Surrey, England, “ditched his teachers, scaled a 3-foot-tall wall, crossed a busy street, and eventually made it to his front door.”
You can imagine 27-year-old Samantha Aldridge’s surprise when she opened the door and saw her little guy standing there. Continue reading »
Child care is expensive everywhere, but some states cost more than others
Working parents, beware: child care costs will eat up a huge part of your personal budget.
This is probably true anywhere, but where you live makes a big difference. Child care costs can vary widely by region. According to CNN’s guide to the most expensive states for child care, my home state of Massachusetts is the priciest in the nation. Cost of living here is high, but it’s not just a case of people having higher incomes and paying more dollars. The percentage of your household income that’s eaten up by day care here is higher than anywhere else.
Childcare here typically costs about sixteen percent of household income. At the other end of the spectrum, moms and dads in Mississippi pay just over seven percent of their incomes to have their little ones cared for while they work. Why the big gap?
Does this kid have an imaginary friend keeping him company?
I’ll never forget my older daughter’s first heartbreak. She was three and the boy of her dreams left her at the altar.
The boy in question was “Harry Potter”, her imaginary friend who’d been her constant playmate and preschool love interest for a year. One day he was just gone. She came to me in tears, looking for answers. Why didn’t Harry come to their wedding? Where was he? Why couldn’t she find him when he’d been with her for so long?
I was no better equipped to answer these questions than I will be when some real-life boyfriend breaks her heart. I don’t know how Harry Potter became her imaginary friend, or why he suddenly disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived.
She’s not alone, though. Lots of kids have interesting imaginary friends.
Tell us your preschool admissions horror story for a chance to win the ultimate documentary on the subject
I moved to Colorado from Manhattan seven years ago, and while there are many things I miss about New York, now that I have a kid, I can’t remember what most of them were. Especially now that my toddler is starting preschool in just a few months.
On the advice of people who know about these things, when I was six weeks pregnant I got on the waiting lists of a few preschools in the area. At the time I was horrified, thinking that was such a New York-type thing to do. But it was no sweat off my back and it has ultimately meant that my husband and I will be sending our daughter to the preschool of our choice. Which is why when I hear stories of nursery school nightmares in places like New York City — particularly this time of year when the acceptance and rejections letters are in the mail — I am reminded that one of the main reasons I left the East Coast was in search of a simpler, less competitive life.
Last month I wrote about a mom who sued her daughter’s tony nursery school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for not properly preparing her for the rigors of a kindergarten entrance exam (within the first few weeks of the school year), which, she said, meant her child was then at a disadvantage for admittance into an Ivy League college. While that mom has been greatly ridiculed in the press for her lawsuit, her sentiments are shared by countless others nonetheless. Getting into the right preschool is big business and more families than not believe the implications are far-reaching.
I hope my kids forget The Sock Wars
My firstborn was an Olympic class tantrum thrower. She started out as a fussy, high-need baby. She’d cry for hours every night, and never slept more than an hour at a stretch. Her cry was the soundtrack of my days.
As she grew, she stopped bawling so much, but her intensity didn’t cool. Instead, she mastered the art of the tantrum. There were some epic ones: the time she pitched a wobbly in Whole Foods and yelled “You’re not my mom” as she ran away from me. The time we were at Ikea and she tried to throw herself down an escalator because I wouldn’t buy her a second donut. The day she sat under her bed howling at the injustice of the world for an hour rather than get dressed for preschool.
I would like the annals of our family history to show that throughout this period – a period in which I gestated and birthed and nursed her little sister, never once getting a full night’s sleep – I was the picture of loving calm. I never once lost my temper, yelled, stomped my feet or otherwise acted like a cranky 4-year-old myself. It’s not true, of course, but I wish it was.
In other words, I hope my kids will forget all about the Sock Wars.
Play helps kids learn.
In a column at CNN.com, two Harvard educators make a case for play-based education. Their case is simple: favoring free play in preschool over early academic training will give kids an edge academically.
Erika and Nicholas Christakis have taught kids ranging from preschoolers to Harvard undergrads. They know what they’re talking about. And what they see are college students who can’t thrive in a rigorous academic environment because they haven’t had enough playtime.
These kids fidget. They don’t know how to share, and dominate otherwise good conversations. They can’t control their impulses. These are all skills learned through play-based education, that these students are missing out on.
A play-based curriculum for preschoolers, and even for older kids, lets them learn the social skills that essential to support deep academic learning at the college level. Without the ability to play, the ability to learn becomes hampered.
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