You can always count on the NYT for a splashy parenting story. This one is a real doozy. The Times reports in, “Push for A’s in Private School is Keeping Costly Tutors Busy“ that some parents are paying tutors amounts equal to their child’s private school tuition!   Since it is hard to believe, here is a quote from the article.

“Prepping” …did not start the week before the exams, the mother pointed out. She said she had paid Mr. Iyer’s company $750 to $1,500 each week this school year for 100-minute sessions on Liberal Studies, a total of about $35,000 — just shy of Riverdale’s $38,800 tuition.

Last year, she said, her tutoring bills hit six figures, including year-round SAT preparation from Advantage Testing at $425 per 50 minutes; Spanish and math help from current and former private school teachers at $150 an hour; and sessions with Mr. Iyer for Riverdale’s equally notorious interdisciplinary course Constructing America, at $375 per 50 minutes.

Forget high school, let’s focus on toddlerhood tutoring.  In Child-Psych.org, a terrific blog on parenting and child development research the author writes:

Junior Kumon program enrolls students from two to five years of age and primarily utilizes a drill and kill methodology designed to provide early reading and math enrichment.  The primary problem that I saw was that the author could find no evidence that this method actually leads to these little people  growing into big people with greater chances for professional success.  In fact, the research overall seems to be lacking.

On the other hand we have plenty of research that shows the ill effects of hyper-focus on performance in children.

Jean Twenge, research psychologist and author of Living In the Age Of Entitlement, analyzed the results of years studies on whether people feel that their sense of control over life comes from the internal or external forces. Intrinsic or internal goals are those that have to do with one’s own development as a person–such as becoming competent in a chosen endeavor and developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Extrinsic goals include goals of high income, status, and perfect appearance. Scores shifted dramatically for children aged 9 to 14 as well as for college age students from 1960 – 2002.  The average young person in 2002 was more External than were 80% of young people in the 1960s. The rise in externality 42-year period showed the same linear trend as did the rise in depression and anxiety in children and teens.

“Twenge’s own theory is that the generational increases in anxiety and depression are related to a shift from “intrinsic” to “extrinsic” goals. Twenge cites evidence that young people today are, on average, more oriented toward extrinsic goals and less oriented toward intrinsic goals than they were in the past. For example, a poll conducted annually of college freshmen shows that most students today list “being well off financially” as more important to them than “developing a meaningful philosophy of life,” while the reverse was true in the 1960s and ’70s.”

If parents continue communicating to children that their worth is in their performance by spending untold sums of money for tutoring, when the child is already at the top of the class, or that math skills must be learned as young as two years old by signing them up for kindergarten Kumon, they are not helping their children fight the tide of American culture that says your worth is in how pretty, rich and skinny you are, and where you go to school. Our children need our balanced perspective, a focus on loving the person they are, not on their accomplishments.

All the push back about too much homework is finally paying off. Parents and school officials are taking an earnest look at the pros and cons of overloading children with homework. We hear about the prolonged battles and stress about homework constantly. Parents are not sure how much they should be involved, kids breaking down in tears if they can’t finish or don’t think they’ve done well enough, and a unfortunate and unnecessary preoccupation with the product and not the process of learning. This excerpt from the recent NYT front page article frames the conflict well.

“…the anti-homework movement has been reignited in recent months by the documentary “Race to Nowhere,”about burned-out students caught in a pressure-cooker educational system.

“There is simply no proof that most homework as we know it improves school performance,” said Vicki Abeles, the filmmaker and a mother of three from California. “And by expecting kids to work a ‘second shift’ in what should be their downtime, the presence of schoolwork at home is negatively affecting the health of our young people and the quality of family time.”

So teachers at Mango Elementary School in Fontana, Calif., are replacing homework with “goal work” that is specific to individual student’s needs and that can be completed in class or at home at his or her own pace. The Pleasanton School District, north of San Jose, Calif., is proposing this month to cut homework times by nearly half and prohibit weekend assignments in elementary grades because, as one administrator said, “parents want their kids back.”

Ridgewood High School in New Jersey introduced a homework-free winter break in December. Schools in Bleckley County, Ga., have instituted “no homework nights” throughout the year. The Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a gifted and talented program, has made homework optional.

“I think people confuse homework with rigor,” said Donna Taylor, the Brooklyn School’s principal, who views homework for children under 11 as primarily benefiting parents by helping them feel connected to the classroom.

In this time of both high pressure and lower academic standing of American students it is well worth looking at this issue on a large scale.

In many states children can start kindergarten as young as four years old. A New York Times article recently reported on the challenges for these kids in, Too young For Kindergarten? Tide Turning Against 4-Year Olds. The article highlights teachers that advocate for an age cut off that would prevent 4-year olds from starting kindergarten.

“They struggled because they’re not developmentally ready,” said Ms. Ferrantino, 26, who teaches in Hartford. “It is such a long day and so draining, they have a hard time holding it together.”

Advocates of lower income children worry, rightly so, that these children, who benefit from an early start at school, will be cut out of public education for a year, while wealthier families will be able to pay for another year of preschool.

Nowhere in the article, did anyone advocate for changing kindergarten back to a play based, non-academic setting where children can socialize and learn in a developmentally appropriate manner.

A letter to the editor in the NYT a few weeks back that hit the nail on the head of our inability to see the backward thinking of our current educational ethos popped into my head.

To the Editor:

In your May 15 issue, I could not help but link Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s Op-Ed article, “Your So-Called Education,” to the Sunday Styles article “Fast-Tracking to Kindergarten.” Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa lament that college students do not improve their writing and reasoning skills while in school. Their answer: increase the time students spend studying and ratchet up the reading and writing assignments.

Then consider the pained and puzzled look on the face of a 3-year-old girl in the “Fast-Tracking” article as she struggles to match round orange letter discs with letters splayed across a cardboard sheet before her. Research shows that she will not gain much from her intense preschool efforts. Less formal education and more time playing are better solutions.

It appears, then, that we are paying big money to educate our youth but failing at both ends of the pipeline and for opposite reasons. Our college students are not dedicating enough time to studying, and our early learners are spending too much time in formal academic tutoring.

But, here’s the point: It’s not the amount of time that counts, but how we use it.

KAREN GROSS

President, Southern Vermont College, Bennington, Vt., May 15, 2011

Couldn’t have said it better!

May and June are always jam packed months for parents. Book publishing parties, teacher appreciation luncheons, end of the year picnics–there seems to be an event for every day. While many families can manage all the activity, some families, parents or children or both feel overwhelmed by the never ending “celebrations”. It is a good idea to really take time to think about which of these events is important. Remember you can say no to some if the pace is creating too much stress. It’s great to mark the end of the year, but there is no need for a crash landing.

A study of the mental health of college freshman shows record low levels of mental health and record high levels of stress. In “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2010,” involving more than 200,000 incoming full-time students at four-year colleges, the percentage of students rating themselves as “below average” in emotional health rose. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who said their emotional health was above average fell to 52 percent. It was 64 percent in 1985.

” The study also reports that our children are coming into college already struggling. This jives with anecocdotal reports from college guidance counselors. While the economy may account for some of this stress, the demands of college admission and the drive for achievement is taking a toll. “The share of students who said on the survey that they had been frequently overwhelmed by all they had to do during their senior year of high school rose to 29 percent from 27 percent last year.”

The positive take away from this is that parents of middle and high schoolers can actively comfort and reassure children that their worth is not equal to their achievement. Parents need to counter the prevailing cultural ethos, and even maybe their own beliefs, that academic achievement is the road to happiness. The trends are clear, the mental health of our children is declining and anxiety and depression are on the rise. While as parents we can only control so much, one thing we can do is not add to the stresses of modern life. We can consistently remind our kids, in word and deed, that there are many ways to a fulfilling life. WE can give them a healthy does of skepticism about the “succeed at all costs” messages that bombard them. If they can internalize these values they can use them to counteract pressure they face.

Annie Lamott, author and mother, wrote a hilarious, honest and upsetting essay about motherhood in 1998. It re-surfaced last month and was sent, via email, to members of an ongoing group at Soho Parenting.

It was so appropriate because in that particular group we speak the unspeakable – the dark feelings that accompany the delight and intense love for our children. We talk about the rage and the out-of-control feelings that children of all ages evoke. It feels a little like a secret society where woman can drop the plastic smile and assurances to other mothers that everything is “Awesome!” and get down and dirty. What a relief. So Lamott’s essay is a window into the that secret place where the underbelly of the maternal belly lies. Read, laugh, and breathe a sigh of relief that you are not alone in the real world of raising children.

Mother Rage: Theory and Practice All mothers Have it. No one talks about it. That only makes it worse. By Annie Lamott

It’s amazing how sophisticated and knowledgeable kids are. Middle schoolers can seem like adults with their vocabularies and knowledge of both current events and celebrity gossip. We can easily get pulled into treating them like adults both with expectations that are too high while exposing them to too much information. Here are some things to consider and compare:

Take some time to think about yourself when you were 11 or 12. What did you worry about? What was school like? Friends? Did you have too much freedom or not enough? What was home like? What did you do after school? How much homework did you have?

Chances are life was different. Familial issues may have been complicated but school life and outside pressure to achieve and excel were probably less pronounced. We can’t change the way the world works for our children but we can remember that they ARE children and they deserve to operate as children do.  No matter how sophisticated our children may seem, they still need lots of comfort, down time, play and silliness. Even as adults, we do too!

The new MTV series Skins has created much buzz since the January 17th premier with allegations of actually being child pornagraphy. The show really pushes the envelope. The first episode is filled with an abundance of flesh, drug use and teenage despair. Here is our best advice for parents: watch the show.

Rather than just banning it in your home, or surrendering to the fact that we ultimately can’t prevent kids from watching it, we can educate ourselves and enable an open and honest dialogue with our teens about the content.

Longtime Soho Parenting colleague Terry Real was interviewed on Good Morning America about his response to the racy show. His insightful and down to earth take on the series is helpful to parents. Watch Terry here as he explains the impact of the show on budding teenage sexuality. Both Terry’s and Soho Parenting’s message to parents is that communication with your teen is more important than whether they watch the show or not.

A self-proclaimed “Asian mom-in-recovery”, in one of my groups, sent me the link to the Wall Street Journal article, Why Chinese Mothers are Superior, by Amy Chua, with the note, “Something you might enjoy. Amusing and also illuminating.” Of course, she was 100% correct. It was amusing and illuminating. The article is a no-holds-barred peek at the intensity of the beliefs and practices that characterize  ’the Chinese mother’. The author quips, “I’m using the term ‘Chinese mother’ loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too.”

If you look beyond the provocative nature of  Chua’s strict, demanding and insulting behavior with her children you will read an essay that takes a poke at the differences between Chinese and Western styles of parenting. And the extremes in approach and behavior are hilarious.

“If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child “stupid,” “worthless” or “a disgrace.” Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child’s grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher’s credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.”

The Soho Parenting staff, huddled around the Mac, got a kick out of reading Chua’s characterization of Western precious parenting. One psychologist, a young mother herself, laughingly relayed a story about her playgroup in which her toddler grabbed something from another child. “A hush and gasp fell over the room. I felt the weight of the question, ‘OH MY GOD, SHE’S GRABBING!! WHAT DO I DO?”  Thankfully, I snapped myself back to reality, and into my role as mother. Despite the fear of being kicked out of the group, I did what any self respecting ‘Chinese mother’ would do–I took the toy out of my child’s hand, gave it back to the marauded child, and told my little one, “No grabbing!” with all the sternness I could manage.’

We found the article so refreshing, in contrast to the scores of “Western parents” who ask, “Is it Ok to tell a two year-old not to hit me in the face?” Chua is not paralyzed by the idea that one false move will be psychologically traumatizing. Her focus is on the strength, not the vulnerability of the child and on her  role of parent; leader and teacher, not friend.  Obviously, we do not agree with punishment that humiliates, or undue expectations of perfection, but like with sleep training, children need their parents to provide structure and tighter parameters even in the face of a child’s protest. Holding a higher bar for our children, whether in relationship to manners and socialization or in helping them persevere in the face of frustration, boredom or insecurity will build resiliency and pride.

And let us not kid ourselves. In the privacy of our ‘western’ homes there’s a whole lot of  pressuring, shaming and  demanding going on. We just keep it a dirty little secret. So how about trying to balance east and west, embrace both your Chinese and American mother and give your children the benefit of a yin yang childhood.

When your children move from house to house whether every other weekend or every week, there is always a “settling-in time” at each home that is challenging for kids and parents. In spite of the excitement of seeing a missed parent or a loved bedroom, the switch is a reminder of the split and a heightened jumble of feelings. Kids often misbehave during this time and parents worry it is a sign of a difficult visit with the other parent, or take it personally believing their child isn’t glad to see them. While these are possibilities, the most common cause of acting out in the transition time is because the switch is hard, plain and simple.

Here are a few things that have helped kids and parents alike:

• Give them space. Let them settle in and approach you.
• Don’t ask how their time was with the other parent right away. Let this emerge slowly and more organically.
• Create rituals. Some kids love to take a bath when they arrive, to relax, to “clear the slate”. Some like to have a snack, some need half an hour in their room.
• Talk to your child about how hard it is to go back and forth and that you realize they might be “grumpy” or not want to talk when they first get home. Your understanding of how things look from their eyes will help them feel known, loved and soothed.
• Meet outside for the transition between parents, for instance at the park, or at a diner, so that you and your child re-enter the house together.
• Handle your own guilt or sadness inside so your children can have room to react without experiencing a need to care for your feelings.
• Schedule hand-offs with plenty of time before bed so kids can really settle in before having to manage going to sleep, which is for them, another separation.