GoMom

A piece in the Washington Post examines what we can now, 17 years after the first comprehensive study of children in day care began, say about children cared for out of the home: they don't suffer any ill effects. While the Study for Early Child Care and Youth Development had to rely on observation and therefor can't address cause & effect relationships between child care and child development, researchers were able to conclude:

"There were few significant differences between children cared for
exclusively by their mothers and those in any form of day care. The
most important predictor of children's attachment, as well as their
cognitive and social development, researchers found, was the
sensitivity of their mothers and the characteristics of their families,
such as parental income and educational levels. The influence of these
factors trumped any effects of day care."

Okay, but what does "sensitivity" mean in this context? I went to the home page of the study but it was uninviting. If daycare doesn't matter much but "sensitivity of mothers" DOES, why won't the Post tell me how to be a sensitive mother?

The schools my kids attend are the same ones I went to as a kid. Besides the addition of a new pool and a new middle school, they haven't changed much. Except in the morning when the road and parking entrance are clogged with parents dropping their kids off. When I was there, being dropped off by your parents was the ultimate wussy-indicator, if you didn't ride the bus something was wrong with you. I know this isn't the case anymore, but I have still always favored the bus.

Now, as I am about to toss my 5er into the reality of Kindergarten, I am freaked out! How can I put my little dough-boy on the bus with a bunch of kids he doesn't know? How will he know where to go? What if he forgets to get off at his stop? I know it will all be fine, that he might have to jump a hurlde to win the race, but still, there's something scary about putting him on a big yellow beast and watching him pull away out of my control.  I'm curious, do you bus or drop off and why did you choose?

I have been kicking myself for the past few years for sending my son off to kindergarten only weeks after his 5th birthday. Media coverage of the practice called "redshirting," or delaying school entry to make him one of the oldest kids in his class, stressed that the advantages of being the oldest could be measured into high school and beyond. Though redshirting children has its roots in the culture of competative sports, it's become so common that a fifth of all 5-year-olds in the US are not yet enrolled in K'garten. But a new study based on a review of federal education data shows that by 8th grade, the oldest children no longer have an academic edge on the youngest. Maybe I didn't mess up after all!

Just because your new husband isn't your child's biological father doesn't mean he's going to slack off when it comes to parenting. Maybe it's cause you gotta be a mensch to take on the role of stepdaddy, but a new study has shown that married "social fathers" do just as good of a job at parenting as biological fathers. In fact, the remarried mothers reported more
cooperation from their men than the mothers who were still with their baby daddies. The guy who scientists say does the least? Your live-in boyfriend. Sure, he helps out with the rent, but make sure he doesn't get you pregnant.

Salon takes a look at those noisy, supposedly educational Leapfrog toys to figure out if they're just a marketing scam or if they actually have a place in the home. I personally don't care for the sonic pollution of these things, but then again I have rigid home environmental policies that also prohibit LEGOs and blocks. (Nothing that will maim me when I step on it.) Do children's toys really need to teach them shapes? Are there a bunch of four year olds out there who are tragically far behind in their triangle recognition, oh, if only they had been playing with Leapfrogs instead of socks!

"Playing with his 7-year-old might be sort of boring, or unsatisfying; his son might not fully express his appreciation, or the child could even be in a bad mood. So this person might find himself terrified of spending time with his child because it’s not an activity he can control or succeed at..." This insight comes from a NY Times article on the problems psychiatrists have with super-rich patients. The good doctor quoted above was trying to describe why a swaggering hedge fund warrior might rather spend his Sunday afternoon working the phones than playing with his kid. Hey, I finally have something in common with America's elite! I also get discouraged by parenting! But apparently it's easier for me to persevere in the face of mediocre results because I'm only an average American and that's what we do best. We realize we're looking at a situation which we can neither succeed at nor control, shrug our shoulders, and dive in anyways.

How much time does your little dynamo spend running around every day? A study in the UK found that only 42% of boys and only 11% of girls met the government-recommended amount of 60 minutes activity a day. Point of interest: the weight of the subjects was not affected by whether or not they met the guidelines. So why do both the US and UK officials encourage the hour of moderately intense exercise? It does prove beneficial for regulating "predictive health indicators" such as insulin resistance, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. So how do you make sure your child moves for a full 60?