There has been so much controversy and worry in the last ten years about vaccinating babies.  Much of the reason for this began with a 1998 paper in the reputable medical journal Lancet. The paper, by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, linked autism to the MMR vaccine.

That hypothesis, the rise in autism and the media’s amplification of both spread the link between vaccines and autism like wild fire. Cynicism about the pharmaceutical industry and our health care system was the gasoline on that fire.

Parents, frightened over their child’s well being, delayed or even refused to vaccinate their children. So here is some important news for parents. Lancet has recently issued a public retraction of this paper.  NPR reports, “…an official British medical investigation found Wakefield’s methods, quote, ‘dishonest and irresponsible.’” Imagine how many parents have unnecessarily worried and how many children were not vaccinated in the last ten years because of bad science.

Click on the link below to hear a clear, interesting and sound report from NPR’s Morning Edition on the state of vaccines today.

Vaccines’ Benefits Trump Concerns, Experts Say

Kids snacking and having “treats” throughout the day has exploded in the last decade. The article  Snack Time Never Ends in the The New York Times, January 20, 2010 presents data that, “between 1977 and 2002, the percent of the American population eating three or more snacks a day increased to 42 percent from 11 percent.”

From 2002 to 2008, one needs only to look around the playground to know that the trend has increased. Food is ubiquitous and adults and children are presented with constant eating opportunities. Add in the generational fear and antipathy to saying no to one’s children and you’ve got haggling and caving going on all day long!

Ellyn Slatter, dietitian and family therapist, is quoted in the article, “The parents’ job is to do the what, when and where of feeding,” she said, “and it is up to the children to do the how much and whether of eating. In order to have successful family meals, you have to structure the snacks.” Her book, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, has long been one of Soho Parenting’s favorites.

Here are a few tips to curb snacking and unhealthy eating:

• Snacks should be given at “Snack Time”: A scheduled time and place and not on the run. As Slatter wisely says “End grazing.”
• A good snack is anything you would be happy to see on a child’s plate at a meal. Goldfish on the dinner plate? Fruit Roll up for breakfast? No?
• No more than 2 snacks a day.
• A snack and a treat are two different things. Treats are desserts, snacks are tiny meals.
• Keep “treats” treats by offering them less often.

With all of the angst and money spent on preschool it was inspiring to hear Paulina Bemporad’s story of starting her own! She is our guest blogger today and we greatly appreciate her contribution. Paulina is the mother of a 3 1/2 year old daughter and an entrepreneur living in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Starting A Cooperative Preschool Morning Program by Paulina Bemporad

When my daughter was approaching her second birthday, I started inquiring about nursery schools in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.  I was horrified to discover that all of the preschools and private programs for toddlers require you to apply a year before the child actually starts the program. Since she was turning two in June of 2008, I was supposed to apply in September of 2007!  I had no idea this was even an issue. I felt like I failed as a mother because I didn’t realize how ultra competitive and over crowded preschools are in NYC.  Like everything else, space here is at a premium so why should a nursery school program for two-year-olds be any different?!  So, I desperately applied to about 10 preschool programs in the Spring of 2008 for my daughter to attend the following Fall. All I received back were rejection letters and notices that she was placed on waiting lists.

I was so frustrated and I didn’t think I had many other options – until I received an email from a parenting blog in my neighborhood looking for families that might be interested in starting a bilingual morning program for toddlers called “Escuelita.” As a native Spanish speaker from a Colombian family, I was thrilled by the opportunity. I was one of five parents who went to the open house.  I was excited to meet the incredible licensed Montessori teacher and an entrepreneurial couple who wanted to create the program for their daughter because they were facing the same situation I was.

To make this happen, they offered their own apartment to host the program which would take place 3 days a week from 9 am -12 p.m.  They are very involved in the community and have their own business right below their apartment. They had a great vision and entrepreurial spirit to create something from the ground up. Like me, they were also very interested in giving their daughter a bilingual education and were extremely frustrated by the lack of opportunities to attend Spanish language programs in Brooklyn. So, they found a teacher, offered their home and invited other parents to join their vision of a Bilingual Montessori preschool right here in our neighborhood.  Over a few planning meetings, the teacher outlined the curriculum, defined the costs and all of the participating parents agreed to the cooperative structure. The group hired a lawyer, had contracts drawn up and we gave our deposits with signed contracts.

We started with 4 children in September 2008, doubled the number of students by January 2009 and today we have ten families. Given the cooperative vision and spirit of the program, the parents play an active role in supporting the school. All parents are asked to provide healthy organic, snacks on a rotating basis.  We all paid for school supplies.  And all of the parents and children gather about every other month for a potluck brunch in each other’s homes. We’ve really become a close knit community and now regularly join together for play dates, share babysitting duties and enjoy hanging out during the weekends.

The greatest benefit has been watching our daughter blossom intellectually and socially. The beauty of the Montessori way of learning is that each child participates in carefully planned “work” activities that suit their specific stage of educational development. The children work independently, join together in pairs and perform group activities like singing and yoga. Lessons revolve around practical life  skills (water pouring work that emphasizes gross motor skills and measurement); sensory skills (from dramatic play with puppets to working with geometric shapes in puzzles); math (working with numbers, counting objects); language (focusing on pre-reading skills, word sounds, letters in alphabet); geography/science (identifying countries on maps, continents on the globe, changes in season, living and non-living objects); and art, physical movement and yoga.

Escuelita is now in its second year and we’ve expanded the program to 4 days a week. Our teacher is looking for permanent space and next year we are planning to expand to a full-time, 5 day-a-week structure. Our experience has been amazing and we feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of the founding and growth of a superb educational program for our daughter.

Based on our experience, here are my five tips for starting a cooperative preschool program:
1. Find a talented, experienced teacher
2. Invite like-minded parents who are willing to be actively involved
3. Find an appropriate space (be sure to consider NYC educational requirements and codes)
4. Develop a clear vision, educational philosophy and guidelines for teacher and parental roles
5. Be flexible to adapt and improve the program over time

Here are some great links to learn more about Montessori education:

The Montessori Foundation

The Wonder Years

Homemade Montessori

Montessori Story

A Montessori Classroom

Montessori Services

by Bethany Saltman

When Azalea announced that she was going to be a spider for Halloween, I was thrilled and relieved, as if our family were being spared the princess thing for one more year. Unfortunately, our little town’s Halloween parade took place an entire week before October 31. So when Azalea figured out that there was another opportunity for dressing up on the horizon, she made no bones about it: “I don’t want to be a spider for the real Halloween. I want to be a princess.”

When I was a little girl, of course I wanted to be a princess too. Or at least treated like one. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be an uber feminine, royal, even magical being. But princesses aren’t what they used to be, not since Andrew Mooney, chairman of Disney marketing, sniffed out the perfect way to hook little girls (and their moms) by launching a whole new brand called, simply, Disney Princess. Even Azalea who lives in a home without a TV, or Cinderella anything, and has watched Snow White once, halfway through, is vulnerable to the princess pandemic. When we go to Target to buy a pair of sneakers or sunglasses (or, alas, a princess dress the night before Halloween), and I find the plainest, least branded items I can find to offer her as choices, she sees all the princess paraphernalia in the background and, like a good little puppy, can hear the high-pitched call.

Andrew Mooney is psyched, but nonchalant: “We simply gave girls what they wanted, although I don’t think any of us grasped how much they wanted this. The counsel we gave to licensees was: What type of bedding would a princess want to sleep in? What kind of alarm clock would a princess want to wake up to? What type of television would a princess like to see? It’s a rare case where you find a girl who has every aspect of her room bedecked in Princess, but if she ends up with three or four of these items, well, then you have a very healthy business.”

Healthy, and how! In 2000, when Mooney was hired, annual Disney sales were around $300 million. Five years later, after he launched the Princess line, Disney was raking in $3 billion a year. That’s a tenfold increase! Clearly, something primal is being tapped into. A desire to be loved? Beautiful? Passive? Honestly, I’m not sure, but$3 billion dollars worth of whatever it is going to add up to some seriously widespread (and monotonous) gender conditioning.

I know that compared to some families, we may seem kind of fruity, or a little precious. And lots of seasoned parents like to razz us for all our intentionality, for thinking we actually have a hand in Azalea’s fate. I get it, and as much as I do understand that you can’t sequester a child from “reality,” I am not ready to completely give in to Mr. Mooney’s, or any other corporate sponsor’s version of that reality. In terms of the princess thing, clearly what a lot of parents say is true: It’s a phase! They’ll grow out of it! Indeed, there aren’t a lot of grown women walking around in taffeta, toile, and tiaras. But that’s missing the point. I admit that I think Disney stuff is supertacky and I just don’t like it. But what feels worthy of a little old-fashioned resistance is the way the Princess Industrial Complex takes advantage of and gives life to little girls’ fantasies. Offering all the products, theme parks, games, and getups makes their trip to the Magic Kingdom so real that a) kids’ imaginations are bound to become less active, and b) the message that life is always fancy may be difficult to let go of as they grow up and are confronted with the ordinariness of the world. And what else am I supposed to be doing as a parent if not helping guide my kid through her environment and her own mind? It’s not a good idea to make mainstream culture some kind of forbidden fruit, but we’d be crazy if, as parents, we didn’t offer some alternatives when we can.

Princesses aren’t the only game in town.

In one of the most well-known Mahayana Buddhist sutras, “The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti” (the story of a famous layman who fell ill and was visited by all the Buddhist dignitaries— human and celestial alike), a goddess appears and has an exchange with one of the great bodhisattvas of all time, Reverend Sariputra. Even though the Buddha’s official word on the topic was that women could realize enlightenment, the Buddhist tradition, like any other, has its share of misogynist views and adherents. After the goddess displays her magical powers in several impressive ways, Sariputra, who believes that only men can experience true realization and is thus baffled about why she is still in her second-class female form, asks her, “Goddess, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state?”

The Goddess answers, “Reverend Sariputra, if a magician were to incarnate a woman by magic, would you ask her, ‘What prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state?’”

To which Sariputra replies, “No! Such a woman would not really exist, so what would there be to transform?”

“Just so,” the Goddess answered. “All things do not really exist.”

She went on to change Sariputra into a woman, which took him by surprise and helped him realize the emptiness of every single thing, including gender.

Kind of the opposite of what Mooney’s princesses do.

Every day, Azalea wants to be someone new—either someone from a book she read, or a movie she watched, or a made-up name from the recesses of her imagination: A-kalea-shina. Even though sometimes it feels a little dissociative, not to mention irritating when I am trying to communicate with my daughter and she refuses to respond because I forgot to call her “Lucia” or “Sofia” or “Mei,” I know that it is her imagination at work, her experiment with reality, her version of shape-shifting a fundamentally empty identity, which is very cool. And if at some point, by osmosis, she learns the names of the Disney princesses—Snow White, Mulan, Aurora, Jasmine, Belle, Tiana, Arielle, Pocohantas, Cinderella—and wants to manifest their princess form, that’s cool too. The point is that by avoiding the onslaught of Disney details, she may be freer to actualize her own version of Snow White.

And who knows? Maybe Snow White isn’t so chipper all the time, cleaning up after all those thwarted little men. She may actually be a powerful goddess who, as Vimalakirti says, “can live wherever she wishes on the strength of her vow to develop living beings.”   

This article first appeared online in Chronogram Magazine, December 1, 2009.

Hide and Seek and Peek-A-Boo. Plain and simple. These games of childhood have withstood the test of time and exist across cultures because they provide an important psychological function for babies and children. In play, they enact and reenact losing and finding a special person. This helps children keep the presence of their caregiver in mind, while not in sight. Through the build up of nervous excitement, laughter, and relief — all the elements of a goodbye and reunion are there in compressed form.

So if your baby is starting to cry when you walk out of the room, or your toddler weeps when you leave for work, or your preschooler is glued to your leg crying at drop-off for school, play these games more at home. In addition to the reminder that you always come back, the soothing that the babysitter or teacher provides on the other end is equally important for emotional development.  These largely nonverbal, play and body-based games help your child grow in their ability to tolerate separations from those they love.

We hate to say we told you so, but in truth there was much “high-five-ing” after reading the New York Times article No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund.   Apparently Disney, the owner of Baby Einstein, is refunding parents due to their false claims of intellectual enhancement for infants. We have watched the growth of the “educational” DVD market for infants balloon over the last decade in spite of recommendations from the APA about the negative consequences of television watching for infants and toddlers. TV for infants is seductive. Babies are riveted, they seem excited, and if that is so then the guilt you feel can be assuaged.  Let’s face it — underneath any parents glowing reports of the fabulousness of Baby Einstein etc. is a lurking knowledge that this isn’t really a good thing to do.

These manufacturers cashed in on the vulnerability of parents wanting to give their children every educational opportunity possible. Parents overrode their common sense time and again in the service of raising a smarter kid. That there is no educational benefit to these products is now well documented, and other research indicates that even background television diminishes vocalizations and conversational turn taking in infants and toddlers.

ParenTalk’s TakeAway: Parents of infants and toddlers should acknowledge that TV is an electronic babysitter. Go take a shower, return a phone call, cook dinner — but do so sparingly and remember that the simple acts of singing, playing and talking are really what a baby needs to thrive.

“NO” has gotten a bad rap! Some child rearing advice in the last twenty five years has given the idea that if you don’t use the word “no” with young child they in turn will not use it back to you in defiance.

We would like to officially debunk that myth. It is a misguided and false idea that comes out of a culture of overly permissive parenting.  We know how well that has worked.  Children will learn to say “no” regardless of whether they hear it from their parents – and they need to hear it from their parents.

Now, we are not advocating that your child’s world be overly encumbered with reprimands and prohibitions. Childhood should be a time of exploration and discovery and should have many “yeses” in it.  However, it is equally imperative that your child begin to learn about boundaries and limits.  In fact, it is an important hallmark in their own developing sense of self, ushering in the awareness that they have their own separate wishes, wants and opinions about things.

Behaviors including self-control, restraint and caution are learned by hearing the word, “no”.  Children learn how to tolerate frustration and regulate intense emotions by learning to accept “no”. When you see a child who is behaving in a disrespectful, whiny and demanding manner, there is a good chance that child is desperately in need of clear limits. Without your “no” your child is left to push until he finds these limits. Our advice? Do not hold back from thoughtfully and appropriately saying “No” to your children.

The recession has a lot of people thinking about things they have taken for granted, like the expense of diapers and pull-ups. This is a great opportunity to really think about how pull-ups came to be and if your child really needs them. Please don’t feel bad if you have used them, but pull-ups are a major marketing ploy and terrible for the environment.

Pull-ups are also confusing for children.  Think about it–how is a two or three year old child supposed to understand that what feels like diaper, looks like diaper, IS a diaper –is really hybrid diaper/underwear?  The diaper companies have capitalized and fueled the trend of parents waiting until their children are three to toilet train. We don’t need to wait so long. Pull-ups, in many cases, have extended and confused children’s toilet training.

As soon as your child indicates their awareness of the peeing/pooping process – usually around two years old – let them be naked to feel and see what happens. Move from diapers, to nakedness, to underwear and skip the whole pull-up stage. You will save time and money will have a clearer sense of what you are expecting.

We often feel like dinosaurs at Soho Parenting. Over the last twenty five years we have watched a couple of trends really take hold. One is that younger and younger children are scheduled for more and more classes.  We saw the birth of the Baby Einstein phenomenon become the norm.  We observed that the busy, busy lives of adults began trickling down to become the busy, busy lives of children. We began ringing the over-scheduling alarm bell.  We heard ourselves saying, “All they really need is the box the toy came in!” We have felt concerned that our culture’s ideas about what children need to learn, grow and thrive has been transformed into a performance based, pressure-filled embarrassment of riches.

The article, Babies Are Smarter Than You Think, by research psychologist, Alison Gopnik provides a big piece of research-based evidence that validates our concern and supports our philosophy. Gopnik sites important developmental research showing that children learn most from what occurs in the natural world of people and objects.  She writes:

“The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw new conclusions from it, ceaselessly manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cellphones and computers…But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly are the people around them. There are no perfect toys; there is no magic formula. Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.

Sadly, some parents … conclude that they need programs and products that will make their babies even smarter. Many think that babies, like adults, should learn in a focused, planned way. So parents put their young children in academic-enrichment classes or use flashcards to get them to recognize the alphabet.”

I am struck by how hard it is for parents to resist taking kids to these classes, purchasing “educational” toys–buying into this idea that children will be deprived if they don’t do or have everything.  Here are two of the biggest culprits: Boredom and peer pressure. We know these two forces in adolescence are a dangerous duo –here they are again in adult form.

Take boredom. A great day for a young child  is pretty uneventful for a grown-up. We are not used to living slowly and quietly. Prior to having children, most adults had long, challenging but interesting workdays. They played by eating out, meeting with friends, going to the gym–time seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Now enter baby –life takes a 180 degree turn. Boredom has always been part of motherhood, but when you are accustomed living such a fast paced life, hanging around the house and neighborhood with young children can feel mind numbingly boring and downright depressing.

Sitting on the floor for a while to watch a child fill and dump a bucket of blocks is repetitive. Taking young children on a trip to the pet store to look at the fish tanks or gerbils seems pretty “low tech” but these blocks of time are precisely what help them learn about the world in a relaxed and organic way. We as parents need to be able to tolerate the slow and small steps necessary while raising children.

And now about peer pressure. Parents tell us about the pressure they feel to compete and keep up with what seems like the most enriched and exciting schedule for their kids. They battle feeling embarrassed and sub par when they decide to go a different route and slow things down. One mom reports:

“It sounds pretty dull to describe the day with… ‘Well, we crawled around a lot and then played with blocks and ate lunch with a little friend at the park and then took a nap.  We also took a trip to the grocery store, came home, had dinner and a bath and went to bed.’ It feels better somehow to say ‘We had gym class in the morning and went to spanish playgroup in the afternoon.’ Of course sometimes I feet bored–but isn’t that supposed to be part of the package?”

So take the advice you know you will give your own kids- “No one ever died from boredom.” AND “If your friend told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge would you?” Boredom leads to creativity and going against the pack means you chart your own course. Don’t be afraid to take it a little more slowly and let your children discover the world at their own pace. All the excitement and the pressure in the world will be waiting for them.

If you have a child who is starting preschool, chances are you’re involved with the dreaded “phase-in”. If you are lucky, you are the parent sighing with relief, watching your “well adjusted” child easily transition to school.  If not, you are the parent in a sweaty state of horror and embarrassment as your child hangs onto your leg whimpering and the words “separation issues” keeps playing over in your mind.

Of course we all want our children to get acclimated to a new setting. No one thinks it would be a good thing to just drop them and go –leaving them to sink or swim. But neither is it necessary to turn the beginning of preschool into a logistical nightmare with weeks of coming to school for 20 minutes a day. Nor do you have to be held hostage for months until your child feels “safe” enough to let you go.

Let’s think about it from the three year old’s perspective.  Your “grown up” is sitting on a toddler size chair, reading a magazine and stonewalling you when you run over to show them something or to sit in their lap. Weird. If a child is having a hard time saying goodbye, why would they get fully involved with new adults, activities and peers while you are sitting there. Young children cannot picture the future like we do – they need to experience things and then remember them. Therefore, until kids have lived through the experience of being in class, surviving the tortuous goodbye, being comforted by a teacher, calming down and having fun, they cannot imagine being there and feeling ok without you.

Of course, each school has it’s own “separation policy” and you should follow that to start. But if you are sitting in the classroom for more than two weeks and you have not been “released”, suggest to the teachers that you come in the morning a little early, have a short and sweet goodbye and see how things go after a few days.  It is a very typical part of growing up to be worried and clingy at the beginning of school–if we normalize it a bit and make it a little less precious, parents and kids will get off to a better start of the school year.