How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

Why the obsession with our kids’ happiness may be dooming them to unhappy adulthoods. A therapist and mother reports.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-land-your-kid-in-therapy/8555/

Also read,  Parentree's own article on a similar vein

As parents, we often hear about over-parenting - parents who are trying to control and manage every little aspect of their children's life. But there is also such a thing as under-parenting? Yes, there is. Read on to see if you are under-parenting.

http://www.parentree.in/Parentree-editors/journal-3087/Under-parenting---Are-you-guilty-of-it-.html

http://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor/status/2890749461

Here is what the US government agency said:

Kellogg Settles FTC Charges That Ads for Frosted Mini-Wheats Were False

Kellogg Company, the world’s leading producer of cereal, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that advertising claims touting a breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats as “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20%” were false and violated federal law. The proposed settlement bars deceptive or misleading cognitive health claims for Kellogg’s breakfast foods and snack foods and bars the company from misrepresenting any tests or studies.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Kellogg claimed in a national advertising campaign – including television, print, and Internet advertising, as well as product packaging – that a breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal is clinically shown to improve children’s attentiveness by nearly 20 percent. The complaint alleges that, in fact, according to the clinical study referred to in Kellogg’s advertising, only about half the children who ate Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast showed any improvement in attentiveness, and only about one in nine improved by 20 percent or more.

The complaint also challenges the claim, made in a different television ad, that a breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats was clinically shown to improve children’s attentiveness by nearly 20 percent when compared to children who ate no breakfast. In fact, the study showed that the children who ate the cereal for breakfast averaged just under 11 percent better in attentiveness, by comparison, and that relatively few were nearly 20 percent more attentive. Based on the clinical study results, the complaint alleges that both of the challenged claims are false and violate the FTC Act.

“We tell consumers that they should deal with trusted national brands,” said Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “So it’s especially important that America’s leading companies are more ‘attentive’ to the truthfulness of their ads and don’t exaggerate the results of tests or research. In the future, the Commission will certainly be more attentive to national advertisers.”

The proposed settlement would bar Kellogg from making comparable claims about Frosted Mini-Wheats unless the claims are true and not misleading. It requires that claims about the benefits to cognitive health, process, or function provided by Frosted Mini-Wheats or any morning food or snack food be substantiated and true. The settlement would prohibit Kellogg from misrepresenting the results of tests, studies, or research regarding any morning or snack food product.

1. Many more wooded areas like Lal Bagh in Bangalore or Guindy State Park in Chennai

2. More open land in cities, preserved for our children to play, instead of the tiny "so-called" parks we have these days

3. Preservation of real farms close to our big cities (rather than making farm land into apartments) so our children can appreciate the contribution of farmers to our lives.

4. Preserve trees, instead of cutting them to make roads wider.

I do the following:

1. Walk to places that are close by

2. Use water carefully

3. Educate children about why trees are so important to us

1. Mahabalipuram - sculptures, rock temples and more. You can work up a sweat climbing up some of the hills.

2. Madras Crocodile Bank - hundreds of crocodiles to see. You can pay for a crocodile feeding to see the feeding frenzy (but it can be over before you know it). Children can hold a baby crocodile and a baby python in their hands.

3. DakshinaChitra - Arts and crafts that children can do themselves, a puppet show, parrot astrology, bioscopes and much more.

4. Boating at Muttukadu - get a boat and cruise the lagoon

These are evergreen attraactions that our kids never get bored of.

And finish the day up with a nice snack or din at one of the resorts or restaurants along the road.

My reverie is broken. I turn to look at him. He is looking at me with those big eyes of his and thinking - "Appa has all the answers. He knows everything". Little does he know!!

My brain frantically searches for answers. The pros and cons are flashing past my mental eye. Do I say yes, and have him ask me many followup questions where he expects pat answers from me? Or do I say no, and have him argue about it with his grandmother for the rest of the day or even longer? My reflexes kick in. I thank my ancestors for giving me good genes, atleast when it comes to quick mental thinking and I come up with a response - "What do you think?".  Nothing to be proud of, but it buys me time!!

Unfortunately, I forget that he has the same genes too and he responds with - "I don't know. That's why I asked you". Maybe he got more of those mental reflex genes than I did!!

By then, my brain had fully woken up. So I decide to avoid his question and take the conversation in another direction, which I hope will be the right one. I say "Baby, its not just about whether it was real or not. The important thing is to look at what each person did and learn from it. For example, Rama worked hard to protect his family. When someone took away his wife, he worked hard and did not give up till he saved her."  His eyes look blank. Oops, maybe that was too complicated an example for him!!

So I adjust my bearings a little bit and find some examples that will be relevant to him. I say "Take Rama and Lakshmana for example. They were brothers who loved each other and helped each other whenever there was trouble. Its about sticking together as a family and helping each other ". OK, his eyes brighten up. He gets it!!

I am on a roll here. So I decide to put in a shameless plug for myself. I say "Also, Rama listened to what his father Dasharatha said. He gave up the throne because his father asked him to. Even when his father asked him to go to the forest, he did. It is important for children to listen to their parents". I almost feel guilty and embarassed saying this.

But by now he has moved on. He is looking out the window at something interesting on the road. I get the token answer "OK".

To him, it was just a simple question and he got the response he needed. So he has put it behind and moved on. I do the same too.

I sit back, relax and congratulate myself on crossing another bridge on the parenting journey :-)

The BBC recently appointed Cerrie Burnell as a presenter on their children's channel - CBeebies.  Cerrie has only 1 full arm. Her right arm is missing below the elbow and ends in stump.

Apparently many parents have complained to the BBC that she is scaring their children.

Though most were supportive, some parents had very negative reactions like:

1. One father said he would ban his daughter from watching the channel because he thought it would "give her nightmares".

2. A mother said her two-year-old girl could not watch because she thought the presenter had been hurt.

3. Some even accused the BBC of hiring the 29-year-old because of "political correctness" solely to meet employment quotas.

4. Some parents said they had to have "difficult" conversations with their children, which they did not want to have.

This set me wondering what the reaction in India would be if a Pogo or a Disney had a disabled person as a presenter. Would we more accepting or less or the same as British parents?

Food for thought, isn't it?

Are we parents trying to make everything "productive"  (by bringing this concept from work to the home) What to you think?

1. Cars - We have two boy who love cars. So a movie with racing, pitstops, cars etc., is perfect for us.  But what I also like about Cars are the many lessons embedded in it - True friendship, Humility, The importance of a team etc., It has been played nearly 50 times at our house.

Tidbit - For a while my kids used to go around saying "Don't be Chick" or "He is being Chick" whenever they say someone do something unfair. Chick Hicks is the aggressive racing car in the movie who believes in winning at all costs, even it is done so unfairly.

2. Chak De - We first showed this movie to our kids because my older one kept asking "Can girls do that?" for any sporting activity. That question is no longer asked at our household :-) After that first viewing this has become a cult hit in our home.  I like it because it is about Hockey (as opposed to the overdose of cricket we get), teamwork, people fighting against odds and breaking stereotypes.

Tidbit - To this day, my kids think Shahrukh Khan's name is Kabir. So if they see him in a movie hoarding near a theater or a photo in the paper they get excited and say "Kabir Khan, Kabir Khan". 

My kids other favs include - Dumbo, Ratatouille, Kungfu Panda (Their favourite line from this movie - "Panda! Focus!")

My kids help wash the tomatoes, then they sit on the kitchen counter and talk as I cut them up and start making the sauce. They inspect every herb that goes into the sauce. I taught them the a line of a Simon and Garfunkel song "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme". So they sing it with gusto every time one of those herbs is added to the sauce.

They get small tasks in all the other activities also - grating the cheese, putting the pasta into the water to cook etc.,

Overall, great fun and a good way to spend 45 minutes making a yummy dinner with the family.

The activity is very simple. One of us starts a story with one sentence and then each one in turn, has to add a sentence to that story.

This process usually ends up with some amazing stories and lots of laughter among us and the kids. Lot of creativity and imagination come into play.

To make it successful, the trick is for grownups to say very descriptive sentences so that it makes it easy for the younger children to participate.

For example, instead of saying "Sanjay was walking in the fields", say "Sanjay was walking among the fields of sunflower while watching the yellow-orange sky of the sunset". This given the children multiple things to focus on - Sanjay, fields, sunflower, colour of the sky, sunset etc.,

Children usually provide shorter but very creative followups. If you use a long description, atleast one of those objects in your sentence will excite their imagination and let them provide a followup.  For example, some of the followup sentences were "Sanjay was wearing a blue shirt", "Sanjay was thinking about dinner", to "The sunflowers were more yellow than the sun" etc.,

A recent creation from our kids:

• Grownup: Ameer was a boy who lived in Chennai next to the blue ocean which had lots of boats and fish
• Kid1: Ameer liked the ocean.
• Kid2: He wanted to go on a boat.
• Grownup: So he walked up to the shore early one morning and asked the fishermen who were pushing their boats into the water, if he could come along with them to fish
• Kid1: They said yes and Ameer got into the motor boat
• Kid2: They went very far into the ocean

And after this the story went on for a long time with Ameer catching a fish bigger than the boat, and having to send it back to the ocean and how he and the fish talked and how a big wave came and pushed him back home etc., etc.,

We adopted this because our older one kept telling us to read more and more and more books and we thought we could get him into the process of creating a story also.

We call this activity the "improv" story. Improv (short for improvisation) is a well known art form.

Where to go

Auroville is not just one location. It is actually an entire area, but most people refer to the Visitors Centre and Matri Mandir as "Auroville".  If you are going from Chennai, take the East Coast Road, go past Pondicherry University and look for the sign that says "Auroville 8 KM". Take a right turn there. Keep going and ask for directions as you go. Or you can also follow one of the many tourist buses which are headed to the visitors center.

What to do

The Visitor's Centre and Matri Mandir are definitely places you want to go, but they are only part of the Auroville experience for us. The Visitors Centre has a small exhibit about Auroville and a number of nice stores that sell craft, handmade items, soaps, perfumes, candles, books, clothes etc., It also has an excellent vegetarian restaurant that our kids and we like. The kids can run around in the lawn with one parent looking after them while the other goes shopping. Or you can buy them a nice book from the bookstore and let them read.

The Matri Mandir is a good (1 to 1.5km, say my feet but it may be very different) distance away from the Visitors Centre. First, you have to watch a short movie about the Matri Mandir at the Visitors Centre and then you will be given tickets to the Matri Mandir. The walk to the Matri Mandir is worth it. It is also an opportunity to have a long conversaton as a family. It is nice and shady but the Mandir itself is an awesome architectural structure (See photos below).

Matri Mandir

Vistors Centre

My other Auroville photos are on Flickr

But like I said, there are other places we like to go in Auroville also. There is another very nice restaurant we like (real Italian food, pizzas made in a brick oven etc.,) called New Creations Corner. It is on the road to Auroville, has no board saying its name, but as of December 2008, was painted in yellow with open air dining and a PCO next to it. I cannot imagine any other way to describe it or find it. The food here is excellent. It is run by a couple of Europeans. They have a mixed vegetarian, non-vegetarian menu at super-cheap prices. This is the not the place to go if you want Indian food. Our kids love this place also.

But if all you do is drive to the Visitor's Center and back, you have missed a very very nice part of Auroville - the shopping. Our routine is usually, drive, stop, browse, buy, drive, stop, browse, buy....... There are many, many interesting stores hidden behind small non-descript signs selling various items we like - clothes, crafts, necklaces, 100% natural soaps made from vegetable oils, hammocks, completely natural and soft  washing detergent for babies clothese, lampshades, organic food, organic oils, crafts, necklaces and more. These are spread all over Auroville. Stop by a few. Check them out. Don't get distracted by the lack of a jazzy storefront. Our favourite soap vendor Auronature, is in a simple looking house with the decoration consisting of large soaps painted on the outer wall, with large lettering. Not what you will find at one of the hip malls in the city, but stop and you will be surprised. Same with Bon - an organic store. It is next to a cowshed, but has organic soaps, incense sticks, organic sesame oil etc.,Most of these are direct storefronts of the manufacturer, and their prices are lower than what you will find in the stores at the Visitor's Centre and much lower than what you will find in the Auroville store in your city. A number of these products also make great gifts for friends.

Of course, the kids can get bored of this shoppping soon, so get them involved in some of the choosing so they stay motivated. Also, you may want to do most of this before you go to Matri Mandir. A walk to and from the Mandir may make you and your kids too tired to shop.

Architecture

I am no expert at architecture, but a number of buildings and landscapes in Auroville have caught my eye, the best of which is Matri Mandir. As you are driving to the Visitor's Center you will see a couple of nice examples. There is also an interesting book about Auroville architecture in the bookstore.

I am sure many people at Parentree have been here. Do share with us your tips so we can plan our next trip to Auroville.

Overall, our children like a trip to Auroville for two reasons - It is very relaxed and we do not have to hurry, and there is good food!!

I have written about this one before here - Besant nagar beach - a favourite haunt

My kids and I go there at the drop of a hat.

On weekday evenings - moonlit ocean, waves up to your knees, steamed peanuts, the flying embers from the grilling of corn, the faraway lights of big ships waiting to enter Chennai port....

Saturday mid-mornings (7:30 - 9:30) - warm sun, walks on the beach with no one around you, crabs, shells, fishing boats and of course, the waves....

And all this fun for little money spent!!!

We were there the night before Cyclone Nisha flooded Chennai, and the waves were big ones!! The wind was blowing so hard that the sand on the beach had those ridged, curved, patterns like you see in deserts. Awesome!

Its a combination of Cyber and Hypochondria. Hypochondria is the condition where one feels many imaginary ailments.

Apparently, the wealth of health information on the web, is resulting in people searching for common terms and concluding that they have a major illness. For example, a search for a headache apparently produces brain tumours among the first page of Google results and people immediately start imagining that they have the latter even though the probability is very very low.

So Cyberchondria is the belief that one is suffering from a major illness that one learned about from the web.

I heard about this a few days ago when Microsoft released a study. They tracked people searching for medical symptoms. And found that people searching for innocuous symptoms (like a headache) were next found researching major illnesses (like brain tumours).

And we all know that as parents, we search for a lot of things on the web that are related to child health. So before you self-diagnose and panic, take a deep breath and consider whether you are a cyberchondriac.

Moral of the story: See a doctor :-)

We pray for the innocent victims and brave policemen who gave their lives in the latest nightmare to strike Mumbai. We hope you, and your families and friends are safe. And we pray that the existing hostage situations be resolved safely and quickly.

I wanted to highlight a journal post that mango_mama wrote on talking to kids about bombs and terrorists attacks.

To tackle any longer term fears that may develop, it maybe worthwhile to also read - Helping young children with their fears

It is sad that we are having to refer to these so frequently!!

I also get angry at myself when I say "No, I am busy" to my kids' requests to play with them, only to realize some time later that whatever it is that kept me busy, was not important at all!!

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iQr2vQMCPXxpARJVsT0oYZFxEa8A

I am sure a lot of us can relate to the experience of the Koreans.

Read the article in full but here are some interesting snippets....

Military training exercises nationwide were suspended and military aircraft grounded to avoid noise during audio foreign language tests, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP.

Some 14,000 police officers as well as 6,800 taxi drivers and more than 4,200 police vehicles were on stand-by to help students arrive in time, Yonhap news agency said.

The focus of his talk is about how Ideo has worked hard to put playfulness in the work environment, so creativity can be fostered.

He repeatedly refers back to preschools and children. He talks about the amazing creativity of children.  And he also talks about how as children grow older, and become grownups their creativity gets stunted.

He says that often grownups get embarassed to express new ideas to those around them (ie., express our creativity), something that children do not hesitate to do.

He also mentions that play does not mean anarchy and that it needs social rules about how to play and when to play. And he talks about how easily and quickly children establish these rules because they know that play without rules will not produce a good outcome.

I thought it was very interesting, given some of the discussions and postings we have had about preschools, imagination, free play etc.,

The challenge we have as parents, is to think about how the creativity that comes naturally in early childhood is not repressed by us or by the education system.

The talk is about 28 minutes long.

It can also be viewed at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

It can also be downloaded from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/download/video/4405/talk/392 as an MP4 file [90 MB].

They named themselves Big Po and Little Po.  Shobha and I are the Tigress and ShiFu.

They also said "Can we call our house the Jade Palace". Told them to go for it.

A drumstick has become the Dragon Scroll.

Then, the moment came that I was waiting for.....

They said "Master Shifu, teach us Kungfu..." I jumped at the opportunity and taught them some simple aerobics and they are out there exercising away to glory, preparing to become Dragon Warriors.....

Great start to the day, won't you say?