Tag Archives: parenting

Advice from a 13-year-old on helping kids transition to high school

Posted on August 23, 2012 by | 1 comment

Montreal Families MagazineIn her first professionally published piece, my 13-year-old daughter offers parents advice on how to make their kids’ transition to high school a little easier:

This time last year, I was heading off to a big, new place: high school. I knew then that it was going to be a challenge for me and my parents. So many things would be different, from teachers, classes and friends to my responsibilities and my parents’ expectations. Now, with a full year of high school behind me, I would like to give my perspective on what parents can do to help their kids with this transition. (Read more)

Aside from my obvious pride in her efforts to get her writing published, I also realize that her words offer her dad and I some insight into how she works. Some takeaways from her advice:

  • Parents, stop talking so much. Give our kids more space. Instead, put more effort into sympathetic listening.
  • Give our kids some more space. They need to make some mistakes to learn important life lessons.
  • Recognize that different kids handle things differently. Some may need more guidance and involvement than others. Respect their temperaments.

Check out Montreal Families Magazine to learn more.

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30 years later: The consequences of NOT eating a marshmallow

Posted on August 16, 2012 by | 2 comments

marshmallowsA little while back, I blogged about the famous Stanford Marshmallow experiment and the astonishing things it has taught us about the value of self-control. A quick description: preschoolers were placed alone in a room with a plate of marshmallows and told they could eat one now, or wait 15 minutes and have two.  (For a more detailed description of the experiment and it’s impact on the participants as they grew up, click here). 

The 30% kids who were able to delay gratification showed higher SAT scores and social competence as high schooler, and handled stress and self-organization better as adults. As a result, the study is frequently cited as an important demonstration of the value of self-control and willpower. This is important, because other studies have shown that self-control is something that can (and clearly should) be taught to young children.

An exciting new wrinkle in this study is additional research published by Tanya Schlam  at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who followed up with the former preschoolers, (now in their 30s). As reported by Slate, Schlam and her colleagues discovered that each minute the subjects had been able to wait before devouring the marshmallow accurately predicted a “0.2 point percent decrease in their current body mass index. Schlam told Slate, “Although the effect was not particularly large, the presence of any effect three decades later is noteworthy,” she argues.

“It involves being more strategic,” Schlam wrote to me. “So a child can use will power to delay gratification, but they have a lot of other techniques at their disposal that they can combine with using will power. For example, from studies with this sample, we know that when the marshmallows are hidden by a tray or when the experimenter tells the kids to think about the marshmallows as ‘fluffy white clouds,’ the kids are able to delay much longer.” Kids who picked up the marshmallow and smelled it, on the other hand, soon gobbled it up. Delayed gratification, then, is about “knowing intuitively or being taught techniques that enable your cool system to kick in (which is reflective and rational) rather than the hot system (which is reflexive and impulsive).”

Schlam points out that the best route to self-control is to avoid having to exercise it: to stay away from trays of marshmallows and cookies. But since we live in a world of too much food, it’s a comfort to know that we can teach kids to hold back on their own. Even kids whose reason for delaying gratification is that they want a second marshmallow.

Self-control is about more than weight loss, of course. And weight loss for many is about more than self-control. But nevertheless, this new finding is exciting for the way it connects childhood behaviors with adult traits, and for the emphasis it places on teaching kids self-control.

So how can we teach our kids that kind of willpower? Some suggestions (feel free to add others):

  • Encouraging them to save up for toys or products they want. Or wait until their birthday/ holiday time to get them.
  • Letting even very young children make challenging choices between desired items on their own. (You can have a snack now, but then there is no dessert after dinner. OR You can buy that t-shirt now but then you won’t have enough money for the dress you’ve been saving for. )
  • Letting them experience the real consequences for their behavior: if you don’t do your homework now, you will have to do it after dinner when everyone else is watching TV/ playing outside/ going to bed.
  • Modelling self-control yourself.

 

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Guest Post: Breathalyzer tests used for teens in an effort to curb drunk driving

Posted on August 10, 2012 by | 5 comments

Risk Within Reason is pleased to feature this guest post by attorney and journalist Pari Chang.

Did you know that underage drinkers are responsible for between 10% and 20% of all alcohol consumed during the Christmas and New Year holiday period? Also, 21- to 24-year-olds repeatedly make up the highest percentage of impaired drivers.

Statistics like these have prompted initiatives by parents and school officials to administer Breathalyzer tests to young people. “Remember the debate over whether school nurses should distribute condoms? Now it’s: We know they drink, but what message does it send if schools give Breathalyzer tests?” says Mark Defino, a parent in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. School officials there have been testing kids for alcohol before school dances and proms since 2007.

Attorney Daniel R. Rosen, whose firm handles auto accident cases, adds, “Besides the moral implications, it’s a matter of balancing the privacy rights of students against controlling drinking and driving.”

The debate over Breathalyzer-testing our youth rages across the country. In the Pequannock school district in New Jersey, it began in 2006 and hasn’t stopped. That year, at a Pequannock school dance, 40% to 50% of the kids arrived under the influence of alcohol. A survey of 400 juniors and seniors taken during that school year revealed that 219 students had used alcohol in the previous 30 days.

Pequannock school officials decided to rely on Breathalyzers to keep the students honest. The district implemented a program that warned students; they could be tested for alcohol up to 80 
hours after they have consumed it. If a student had a drink on Friday, it would be evident on a test on Monday. Since that program began, the number of juniors and seniors consuming alcohol has decreased by 37%.

I commend the district for having the courage to take action instead of waiting for a tragedy,” says Lacy Link, an educator in Northern New Jersey whose district is considering a similar program. She notes that many parents support the program. “Some have purchased breath alcohol ignition interlock devices of their own,” she says. Breath alcohol ignition interlock devices (BAIID) are designed to prevent an individual from operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. The result is peace of mind for parents by reducing the likelihood that their teenagers will be arrested for drunk driving or be involved in a near-fatal or fatal drunk-driving accident.

But Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) presses a less controversial approach.  MADD advocates teaching kids to say no when peers urge them to engage in underage drinking. They encourage parents to inform their teenagers, and the statistics support their approach: Teen alcohol use kills about 6,000 people each year, more than all illegal drugs combined.

One in three eighth-grade students has tried alcohol. One in five teens binge drinks, but only one in 100 parents believes their child binge drinks. Seventy-four percent of kids (ages 8-17) said their parents are the leading influence on their decisions about drinking.  Having regular family conversations about alcohol can reduce underage drinking and drunkenness by 30-60%. When parents and kids are better connected, kids are less likely to drink or use other drugs.

To help parents tackle this tough issue, MADD provides a parent handbook on its website and arranges community workshops. Around the holidays, it’s particularly difficult to curb teen drinking and driving, not only because kids let loose after exams, but because of capitalism, straight up.

Barron H. Lerner, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University Medical Center and author of the book One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900, notes that the alcohol industry has opposed many anti-drunk driving measures by enthusiastically promoting the phrase “responsible drinking” in public campaigns while opposing legislation aimed at deterring drinking and driving. Plus, beer companies, in particular, continue to advertise heavily and promote events on college campuses.

Teenage drinking and driving statistics are alarming, but parents are not without resources. The best resource is sharing yourself, and speaking from the heart, without judgment. No Breathalyzer test is a substitute for an open and honest conversation with a young person about taking responsibility for their actions. When young people feel they are heard and affirmed, constructive change can happen.

Pari Chang is an attorney and professional journalist with writing credits that include The New York Times, SELF, and Glamour.

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