"National Survey Reveals Parents' Deep Concern About Protecting Kids from Violence"

National Survey Reveals Parents' Deep Concern About Protecting Kids from Violence

 

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA — A new nationwide survey of parents commissioned by Common Sense Media and the Center for American Progress and released today finds that 75 percent of parents say shielding children from violence is difficult. Seventy-five percent of parents blame easy access to guns, and 77 percent of parents believe media violence, such as content in TV, movies, and video games, contributes to America's culture of violence.
1,050 parents with children ages 18 years and younger were randomly selected to share their opinions about factors that contribute to violence in America. According to the survey results:

• 75 percent of parents say it's difficult to shield children from violence
• A majority of parents agree that addressing violence will require action on both violence in the media and keeping weapons away from our kids
• 75 percent of parents have concerns that easy access to guns is contributing to violence in this country
• 88 percent of parents want ads for violent games, movies, and TV shows to be prevented from airing during programs viewed by large audiences of children
• 91 percent want theaters to limit previews for movies that have the same or a lower rating than the movie that is being shown
• A majority of parents agree that the media industry "has the power to help change" America's culture of violence
• A majority of parents agree that the gun industry "should be part of the solution" in addressing the culture of violence

"These survey results demonstrate that parents are anxious about their children's safety in America today and that they believe we need real action to prevent gun violence and change the culture of violence. We need to do both, this is not a choice between two important goals," said Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress.

"Parents are clearly concerned about how violence in media may be impacting their children," said James Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media. "Our culture of violence seems to have made it the new normal that parents who take their kids to a movie theater or gather to watch a football game are at risk of exposing them to inappropriate content that is marketing video games or films rated for more mature audiences."

In addition to content in TV, movies, and video games, parents were asked for their perceptions of other contributing factors to violence in this country. They expressed concerns about bullying (92 percent), access to guns (75 percent), and current levels of crime (86 percent).

The survey was completed on January 4 and 5, 2013, and was conducted by Survey USA Market Research. The survey's margin of error is +/-1.7 percent.
For the full results, click here.

Read Common Sense Media's letters about the survey to the White House, Federal Communications Commission, and Federal Trade Commission below.
Common Sense Media letter to Vice President Biden
Common Sense Media letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski
Common Sense Media letter to FTC Chairman Leibowitz

About Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology. We exist because our kids are growing up in a culture that profoundly impacts their physical, social, and emotional well-being. We provide families with the advice and media reviews they need in order to make the best choices for their children. Through our education programs and policy efforts, Common Sense Media empowers parents, educators, and young people to become knowledgeable and responsible digital citizens. For more information, go to: www.commonsense.org.

About the Center for American Progress
The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The Center for American Progress and its sister organization the Center for American Progress Action Fund, have launched a comprehensive effort to reduce gun violence, enforce current laws, and enact common sense policies to increase public safety.  For more information, visit: www.centerforamericanprogress.org.

This Life

Train a Parent, Spare a Child

By BRUCE FEILER

Published: January 11, 2013

 

SOMEONE asked me recently what my New Year’s resolution was as a parent. Without thinking, I said, “more creative bribing.” 

I find the issue of bribing children — or to be more precise, the giving of blunt, uncreative rewards for desired behavior (“If you just stop kicking that seat in front of you on the plane, I’ll give you 10 minutes of iPad time”; “Clean your room this weekend, I’ll give you 10 bucks”; “If you use good manners at Grandma’s house, I’ll let you have an extra brownie”) — to be one of the more nagging challenges of being a parent.

On one hand, I’ve read a small library of articles that have laid out with undeniable persuasiveness evidence that giving children tangible rewards — from money to sweets to an extra hour before bedtime — not only doesn’t work in the long term, it actually has a negative effect on them. As early as the 1960s, Edward Deci, then a psychology graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, showed that when external rewards are given, subjects “lose intrinsic interest for the activity.” More recently, Daniel Pink, in his best-selling book “Drive,” reviewed four decades of research and concluded that offering short-term incentives to elicit behavior is unreliable, ineffective and causes “considerable long-term damage.” (The main downside: People perform the task merely to get the reward; when the reward is removed, they stop doing it.) 

So I got it: bribing is bad. And yet I, my wife and nearly every other parent I know resorts to this tactic with appalling regularity. As one father said to me recently when we were discussing our approaches to parenthood: “My philosophy is simple: threats and bribes.”

So what’s a beleaguered parent to do? I reached out to some of the harshest critics of bribing for tips on making my resolution come true. 

THE TALKING CURE Dr. Deci, now a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said the biggest problem with tangible rewards is that they actually work, at least in the short run. “If you want somebody to do something, and if you have enough money, you can get them do it,” he said. “Practically anyone, practically anything.”

But with children, he pointed out, since you are trying to get them to do the behavior “more or less ongoingly for the rest of their lives,” the technique will backfire unless you’re prepared to offer the same reward every time. “You don’t want them coming to you when they’re grown,” he said.

Dr. Deci recommends a three-step alternative. First, be clear about why what you’re asking them do is important. Second, be interested in their point of view. “If it’s something they hate doing, acknowledge that, tell them you understand it’s not fun, yet the reason they need to do it is as follows,” he said. Finally, communicate in a way that’s not controlling. “Don’t use words like ‘should,’ ‘must’ and ‘have to,’ ” he said. “All of those things that convey to them you’re a big person trying to push around a little person.” 

MAKE IT A GAME Alan Kazdin, the director of the Yale Parenting Center, said the problem with incentives is they focus too much attention on the desired result instead of the behavior that leads up to the result. “You can’t throw rewards at behaviors that don’t exist and get them,” he said. “If someone says I will match your retirement fund if you perform a flamenco dance right now, my reaction is, ‘Great, but it turns out I can’t do that.’ You have to develop the behavior very, very gradually.”

For example, if you want your children to eat more vegetables, he said, instead offering them $10 to do so (a technique I once stooped to, I confess), he suggested turning the process into a game. First, take the pressure off by telling them they don’t have to eat vegetables now but just keep them on their plate. “You tell them they’re probably going to want to eat vegetables when they’re older, because there’s a nice little challenge in there,” he said. 

Next Page »

 

Bruce Feiler’s latest book, “The Secrets of Happy Families,” will be published in February. “This Life” appears monthly.

Keep recess in play, pediatricians urge

Michelle Healy, USA TODAY11:06a.m. EST December 31, 2012

American Academy of Pediatrics' new policy statement says recess should never be withheld for punitive or academic reasons.

(Photo: Jose Leiva, The Lewiston Sun-Journal, via AP)

Recess is good for a child's body and mind, and withholding these regular breaks in the school day may be counterproductive to healthy child development, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics' first policy statement on the issue.

Increasing pressures on schools to find more time for academics has resulted in "an erosion of recess time around the country," says statement co-author Robert Murray, a professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University. "But we have a couple of decades of research now that indicates that recess plays a huge role in a child's life, and not just because it's fun."

Safe and properly supervised recess offers children "cognitive, physical, emotional and social benefits," he says, including better attention span, improved classroom behavior, and an important opportunity for free, unstructured play, creativity and interaction with other kids.

In fact, the policy statement recommends that recess never be withheld as a punishment or for academic reasons because the break serves a "crucial role" in a child's development and social interaction.

About 73% of elementary schools provide regular recess for all grades, but "it's difficult to quantify at a national level exactly how many schools are taking it away as a policy," says Catherine Ramstetter, a health educator at The Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Cincinnati and co-author of the statement.
Studies cited by the authors note that up to 40% of U.S. school districts have reduced or eliminated recess to allow more time for core academics, and one in four elementary schools no longer provides access to all grades.

In a 2010 Gallup Survey of 1,951 principals and other school officials, 77% reported eliminating recess as a punishment; one in five reported cutting recess time to meet testing requirements.
"Recess may look very different from one school to another," Ramstetter says, noting that facilities, location, and weather, for example, can dictate how individual schools provide recess.

With increased attention to the obesity crisis among children, recess has gained added focus as an opportunity for much-needed physical activity and fitness.

But the academy's statement says it should be viewed as "a complement to physical education -- not a substitute."

Recess "might allow time to practice something learned in physical education class, but it might also be a time for free play, creative play, imagination, or just sitting around and talking with friends," says Ramstetter.
It's important to view recess as "a child's personal time to decompress from rigorous academic activity and to prepare for the next rigorous activity," says Murray.

High school students get a similar opportunity as they change classes and adults have it when they "go for a coffee break and talk with their colleagues and then come back for the next task," he says. This personal time for kids "should not be taken away for either academic or disciplinary reasons. We need to protect recess time."

"School of Hard Knocks"

School of Hard Knocks

‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough

By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL

Most readers of The New York Times probably subscribe to what Paul Tough calls “the cognitive hypothesis”: the belief “that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills — the kind of intelligence that gets measured on I.Q. tests, including the abilities to recognize letters and words, to calculate, to detect patterns — and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible.” In his new book, “How Children Succeed,” Tough sets out to replace this assumption with what might be called the character hypothesis: the notion that noncognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success.

HOW CHILDREN SUCCEED

Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

By Paul Tough

231 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $27.

“Psychologists and neuroscientists have learned a lot in the past few decades about where these skills come from and how they are developed,” Tough writes, and what they’ve discovered can be summed up in a sentence: Character is created by encountering and overcoming failure. In this absorbing and important book, Tough explains why American children from both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are missing out on these essential experiences. The offspring of affluent parents are insulated from adversity, beginning with their baby-proofed nurseries and continuing well into their parentally financed young adulthoods. And while poor children face no end of challenges — from inadequate nutrition and medical care to dysfunctional schools and neighborhoods — there is often little support to help them turn these omnipresent obstacles into character-enhancing triumphs. The book illuminates the extremes of American childhood: for rich kids, a safety net drawn so tight it’s a harness; for poor kids, almost nothing to break their fall. 

Though Tough examines at length the travails of both groups, it’s the plight of disadvantaged children that compels his interest and emotions. In his previous book, the well-received “Whatever It Takes,” Tough followed the efforts of the educator Geoffrey Canada to turn his social service organization, the Harlem Children’s Zone, into a “conveyor belt” that would reliably carry the neighborhood’s children from infancy through primary and secondary school, into college and the middle class. In Canada’s story, Tough found a deep and complicated character fighting to accomplish a valiant goal in the face of terrific odds. In “How Children Succeed,” Tough is working in miniature, sketching a handful of poor children and their mentors, and these depictions sometimes lack the force and distinctiveness of his portrait of Canada. But they are keenly and sensitively observed, and occasionally even whimsical, as in his captivating account of Kewauna Lerma, a Chicago teenager. Growing up in the erratic care of a feckless single mother, “Kewauna seemed able to ignore the day-to-day indignities of life in poverty on the South Side and instead stay focused on her vision of a more successful future.” Kewauna tells Tough, “I always wanted to be one of those business ladies walking downtown with my briefcase, everybody saying, ‘Hi, Miss Lerma!’ ” 

Here, as throughout the book, Tough nimbly combines his own reporting with the findings of scientists. He describes, for example, the famous “marshmallow experiment” of the psychologist Walter Mischel, whose studies, starting in the late 1960s, found that children who mustered the self-control to resist eating a marshmallow right away in return for two marshmallows later on did better in school and were more successful as adults. 

“What was most remarkable to me about Kewauna was that she was able to marshal her prodigious noncognitive capacity — call it grit, conscientiousness, resilience or the ability to delay gratification — all for a distant prize that was, for her, almost entirely theoretical,” Tough observes of his young subject, who gets into college and works hard once she’s there. “She didn’t actually know any business ladies with briefcases downtown; she didn’t even know any college graduates except her teachers. It was as if Kewauna were taking part in an extended, high-stakes version of Walter Mischel’s marshmallow experiment, except in this case, the choice on offer was that she could have one marshmallow now or she could work really hard for four years, constantly scrimping and saving, staying up all night, struggling, sacrificing — and then get, not two marshmallows, but some kind of elegant French pastry she’d only vaguely heard of, like a napoleon. And Kewauna, miraculously, opted for the napoleon, even though she’d never tasted one before and didn’t know anyone who had. She just had faith that it was going to be delicious.” 

Many poor children don’t develop the resilience Kewauna has in such abundance, and the reason, Tough says, can be traced back to their troubled home lives: “The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. When you’re overwhelmed by uncontrollable impulses and distracted by negative feelings, it’s hard to learn the alphabet.” 

Children can be buffered from surrounding stresses by attentive, responsive parenting, but the adults in these children’s lives are often too burdened by their own problems to offer such care.

Rich kids, Tough adds, may also lack a nurturing connection to their mothers and fathers — not so much in their early years as when they enter adolescence and the push for achievement intensifies. He explores the research of Suniya Luthar, a psychology professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Luthar “found that parenting mattered at both socioeconomic extremes. For both rich and poor teenagers, certain family characteristics predicted children’s maladjustment, including low levels of maternal attachment, high levels of parental criticism and minimal after-school adult supervision. Among the affluent children, Luthar found, the main cause of distress was ‘excessive achievement pressures and isolation from parents — both physical and emotional.’ ” 

Though the title “How Children Succeed” makes the book sound like an instruction manual for parents, it’s really a guide to the ironies and perversities of income inequality in America. Tough, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, portrays a country of very privileged children and very poor ones, both deprived of the emotional and intellectual experi­ences that make for sturdy character. The political and economic consequences of our unbalanced society have been brought to the fore by debates about the causes of the Great Recession and the claims of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Paul Tough brings us news of the psychological effects of income inequality, through stories of the people who feel these effects most acutely: our children. 

In one of the most affecting parts of his book, he reflects on his decision, 27 years ago, to drop out of college. “It hasn’t escaped my attention,” Tough notes ruefully, that many of the researchers he writes about “have identified dropping out of high school or college as a symptom of substandard noncognitive ability: low grit, low perseverance, bad planning skills.” And yet this same research helped him realize that he was lucky to be allowed to make his own mistakes. After leaving Columbia in the fall of his freshman year, he bicycled alone from Atlanta to Halifax. Following another aborted attempt at college, he took an internship at Harper’s Magazine and embarked on a successful career as a writer and editor. 

Fewer and fewer young people are getting the character-building combination of support and autonomy that Tough was fortunate enough to receive. This is a worrying predicament — for who will have the conscientiousness, the persistence and the grit to change it?

Annie Murphy Paul, the author of “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives,” is writing a book about the science of learning.

When Anxiety Interrupts a Child’s Life

By JANE E. BRODY

Yvetta Fedorova

Jane Brody on health and aging.

Is it any wonder so many children are anxious? As the recent horror in Connecticut demonstrates, children today may be confronted with unthinkable realities, events that their parents and grandparents could never have conceived.

But much of what children fear is rooted more in imagination than in reality. Parents may be called upon to ease anxieties about everything from strange noises to water, from spiders in the yard to monsters under the bed. Comforting children seized with irrational fears can be a difficult task.

One of the most common childhood fears involves separation from parents. Separation anxiety is a normal developmental stage that typically starts around 9 months and ends at about age 3. However, for Daniel Smith, author of “Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety,” the trauma of parental separation exploded at age 4 and continued through age 13.

“I would become hysterical, nauseated, unable to enjoy anything whenever I was separated from my parents,” he recalled in an interview. “I had a pit in my stomach and icicles in my chest. Although I had wanted to go to camp, when my parents dropped me off, the counselor had to drag me out of the car by my ankles. ”

Advice from therapists who treat childhood trauma about talking to children about the mass shooting.

Of course, some fears are functional, like those that keep children from taking such risks as running into traffic or touching a hot stove. But when anxiety interferes with a child’s ability to lead a normal life — go to school, sleep at a friend’s house, learn to swim, cross a street — it morphs into a disorder that often warrants treatment.

According to Golda S. Ginsburg, an expert on childhood anxiety at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, anxiety disorders affect one in five children in the United States. “Even though we are doing a better job of identifying anxiety disorders in children and have effective methods to treat them, they are still underdiagnosed and undertreated,” Dr. Ginsburg said.

Root of the Problem
Dr. Ginsburg explained that childhood anxiety disorders typically result from an interaction between biology and environment. For some, like Mr. Smith, there is a strong hereditary component.
His mother, Marilyn, who became a psychotherapist, suffered acutely from anxiety her entire life, though she ultimately learned how to keep it under wraps most of the time.

Even without a hereditary influence, Dr. Ginsburg said, “Some children are born with a certain temperament that increases their risk of developing an anxiety disorder. They may be behaviorally inhibited — shyer, reticent about approaching novel conditions.” But only half of those children end up with an anxiety disorder, she added, while some children who are not inhibited do develop these conditions.

Dr. Ginsburg said that parental behavior also has an effect, especially parents who “model” anxiety, communicating verbally or behaviorally that something is dangerous.
She cited parents who are overprotective or overly controlling, who constantly identify dangers in the child’s world that are not real threats — warning a child, for instance, not to touch a handrail on a staircase because it is full of germs.

In describing how genes and behavior can interact, Mr. Smith wrote that “a child registers who’s raising him.”
“It was not until I was nearly twenty, deep into my own way with anxiety, that my mother spoke to me explicitly about her anxiety and the grief it caused her. But by that time she was essentially talking to herself. I’d become her,” Mr. Smith wrote.

Unlike people with psychoses, who fear nonexistent risks like microphones in their molars, “the anxious fear actual risks: disease, dismemberment, assault, humiliation, failure,” Mr. Smith wrote. He described chronic anxiety as the “drama queen of the mind.” Danger lurks at every turn, no matter how remote the odds that anything bad actually will happen. As with adults who suffer from anxiety disorders, the most successful, scientifically validated treatment for overly anxious children is cognitive behavioral therapy (commonly called C.B.T.), sometimes in combination with an antidepressant drug like Zoloft (sertraline).

In effect, C.B.T. reprograms the brain, using words and behavior to replace irrational or dysfunctional thoughts and actions with rational ones.
In one multicenter study of 488 children aged 7 to 17 suffering from separation anxiety, generalized anxiety or social phobia, C. B. T and Zoloft used individually significantly reduced the severity of anxiety, but combining the two worked even better.

Offering Relief
Tamar E. Chansky, a psychotherapist who treats anxious children and adults and wrote a practical guide, “Freeing Your Child From Anxiety,” said the goal was not to put down children’s fears but to help them see that their fears are unwarranted and that they can overcome them.

She has created a “master plan” for helping children gain control over their anxiety:
¶ Empathize with your child. Resist the temptation to tell the child there is nothing to worry about, and instead acknowledge the child’s concerns and the effect they have.
¶ Describe the problem as coming from “the worry brain” that jumps to conclusions and cannot be trusted. Give worry a name, like “brain bug.” This takes the focus from the child’s particular fear and makes anxiety itself the problem.
¶ Rewire and resist. Ask your child what she is really worried about and what she thinks might happen. Then ask her to check whether these thoughts really make sense. Help her find inner strength, the voice that tells worry it is not the boss.
¶ Teach relaxation techniques to temper the biological alarm to fight or flee whenever fear takes over.
¶ Help the child focus on what he wants to do and what he would do if worry were not in charge.
¶ Finally, reinforce your child’s efforts, praising her for getting through a tough situation.
For those in need of professional help, between 10 and 20 sessions of C.B.T. can produce “meaningful clinical improvement in 50 to 75 percent of children,” Dr. Ginsburg said. “Anxiety is a chronic illness that can emerge in times of environmental crises or change,” she said. “Prevention is important. I want parents to be proactive rather than reactive. A minor adjustment can prevent re-emerging anxiety from interfering with a child’s life.”

January 3rd, 2013 05:01 PM ET This is your brain on 'Sesame Street' Scientists can't really know what a child is thinking, but they are interested in the brain processes that happen in educational settings. To that end, a new study in PLOS Biology compares the brains of children and adults, using "Sesame Street" as a way to test what happens on a neurological level during a popular TV program aimed at learning. "We’re kind of honing in on what brain regions are important for real-world mathematics learning in children," said lead study author Jessica Cantlon, assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. Methods: Participants included 27 typically developing children, ages 4 to 10, and 20 adults between ages 18 and 25. Each participant took part in one or more of the three components to the study. Researchers focused on what happens in the brain during mathematical lessons. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the neural activity in participants. In one part of the experiment, children and adults watched the same 20-minute montage of clips from "Sesame Street," and the fMRI scanner measured their brain activity for the duration of the video. Some clips were related to counting, while others were about colors, animals and other non-math topics. In a different task, participants had to determine whether the stimuli they were shown were the same or different, such as faces and numbers. Children were also given standardized IQ tests after the scanning. Results: Researchers found that adultlike brain responses tended to show up in kids who demonstrated higher math and verbal knowledge levels. A brain region called the interparietal sulcus appeared to be linked to mathematics, as activity in that area tended to increase during math-related "Sesame Street" segments. This area of the brain has been linked to working memory in previous research, and there has been some debate about its role in mathematics learning. The researchers do not have enough evidence to say that this is a causal factor, however. In other words, they do not know if these neural patterns are the cause or effect of learning. A different brain region called Broca's area was associated with verbal knowledge, which has been well established by other scientists. More from CNN Health: Does mom's depression affect baby's language? Limitations: The sample size was small for this study. Although this is typical for fMRI studies, especially given the cost involved in such protocols, more research needs to be done to confirm these findings and better explain their role in the learning process. Future studies: Cantlon and colleagues did not compare the neural responses to "Sesame Street" with any other real-world educational program or classroom setting, which could be another area of inquiry. However, it is hard to control exactly what happens in a "classroom setting" scenario, which is an advantage of showing everyone the same TV show montage. Also, the age range of the children who participated was broad; a future study could focus on particular age groups, Cantlon said. "It would be nice to put a finer point on that, and test children in narrower age windows with narrower skill sets to see if we could find even finer relationships, perhaps in subsections of this interparietal sulcus region, in certain types of math skills," she said.

Essential Apps for Kids and Teens

Starter Kits for iPad, iPhone, Android, and Kindle Fire

Print the guide

So you just got a new smartphone or tablet. Now what? If you're wondering what apps to load it with, we've got you covered. Whether you've got an iPad, iPhone, Android phone or tablet, or a Kindle Fire, we have a ton of great app suggestions to start your kids off right.
Just look up your device, and you'll see picks arranged by age groups.
Our expert editors are completely independent, so their selections are based solely on kids' best interests. We've provided buy links for many apps, but they're simply for your convenience.

Browse the Guide by Device and Age Group:

 

• iPad ^®

  
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  • Ages 2-6
  • Ages 7-12
  • Ages 13-17

• iPhone ^®

  
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  • Ages 13-17

• Android ^®
  Tablet

  
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  • Ages 2-6
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• Android^®
  Phone

  
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  • Ages 2-6
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• Kindle
  Fire ^®

  
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  • Ages 2-6
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12 New Year’s Resolutions for Happier Families

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA

 

As I wrote around this time a year ago, I love making New Year’s resolutions. For me, it’s a moment to take stock of where I am, and where I want to be, and of all the things I’ve said I hoped to do and have or haven’t done — and why. The resolutions I fail at are always the ones I didn’t really want to keep.
This year, for the first time, I hope to gather my family and persuade them to talk about what we did and didn’t do well as a family this year, and to make a family resolution: Who do we want to be together in 2013? (My husband will say that he wants us to be a family that does not make New Year’s resolutions.)
In that spirit, I asked authors I admire to offer one single resolution to help shape a happier family life in the year ahead.

Brené Brown, author of “Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection”: One intention our family is setting for 2013 is to make more art. It doesn’t matter if it’s more photography, more painting, experimenting in the kitchen, or building the LEGO Death Star (which is our family project right now). I want to create together. It keeps us connected and spiritually grounded.

Andrew and Caitlin Friedman, authors of “Family, Inc.: Take a meeting with your partner or family. Spending just 30 minutes a week on our to-do list, schedule and brainstorming bigger decisions really helped us take control of the chaos that is working parenthood.

Po Bronson, co-author of “NurtureShock” and the forthcoming “Top Dog” (January 2013): Our resolution in our family is pretty simple: argue less, talk more. Even though in “NurtureShock” we wrote that arguing is the opposite of lying, and it is, there’s a lot of arguing that’s just about arguing, and we hope for less of it.

Ashley Merryman, co-author of “NurtureShock” and the forthcoming “Top Dog” (January 2013): This year, I want to sit less. You can read that as “need to exercise” – true enough – but sitting also means I’m spending too much time online, watching too much TV, and so on. Instead, I want to do more meaningful things with people I care about.

Bruce Feiler, “This Life” columnist for Sunday Styles and author of “Walking the Bible”, “Abraham” and “The Secrets of Happy Families” (coming in February): Bribe more creatively (fewer direct rewards for good behavior; more unanticipated praise and surprise adventures). Celebrate more fully (worry less about bad moments; make more of the good). Play more often.

Madeline Levine, author of “Teach Your Children Well”: I resolve to lead with my ears and not my mouth. I’ve yet to meet a child who feels like they’ve been listened to too much.

Asha Dornfest, founder of Parent Hacks and co-author of “Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More by Doing Less”: Embrace the idea of course correction. When faced with a parenting decision, briefly survey your options then make the best choice you can, knowing you can recalculate your route to the destination as the situation — and your family — changes.

Christine Koh, founder of Boston Mamas and co-author of “Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More by Doing Less”: Strive for a less frantic family calendar in 2013 by finding your “Goldilocks level of busy.” Review the last couple of months of your family calendar and identify how many events or activities made your weeks feel too crazy, too slow or just right. Shoot for the “just right” number each week.

Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project” and “Happier at Home”: It’s easy to fall into the bad habit of barely looking up from games, homework, books or devices when family members come and go. For that reason, in my family, we made a group resolution to “give warm greetings and farewells.” This habit is surprisingly easy to acquire — it doesn’t take any extra time, energy or money — and it makes a real difference to the atmosphere of home.

Rivka Caroline, author of “From Frazzled to Focused” (@SoBeOrganized): Keep adding to your “to-don’t” list. As frustrating as it is, there just isn’t time for everything. Every “to-don’t” makes room for a “to-do.”

Laura Vanderkam, author of “What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend”: Think about how you want to spend your downtime. Weekends, evenings and vacations can be opportunities for adventure, but we often lose them in front of the TV because we fail to plan. In 2013, make a bucket list of the fun you want to have as a family — then get those ideas on the calendar.

Michelle Cove, author of “I Love Mondays, and Other Confessions from Devoted Working Moms”: The next time you’re about to apologize to anyone — children, colleagues — ask yourself if you’ve really done anything wrong. Too often, we moms apologize by default.

"Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi; Museum of Mathematics st Madison Square Park"

Museum Review

Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi

Museum of Mathematics at Madison Square Park

Joshua Bright for The New York Times

Museum of Mathematics “Harmony of the Spheres,” one of the exhibits, being tested before opening day.

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

Published: December 13, 2012

For those of us who have been intoxicated by the powers and possibilities of mathematics, the mystery isn’t why that fascination developed but why it isn’t universal. How can students not be entranced? So profound are the effects of math for those who have felt them, that you never really become a former mathematician (or ex-mathematics student) but one who has “lapsed,” as if it were an apostasy.

 

Joshua Bright for The New York Times

The “String Product,” an interactive calculator based on a paraboloid, fills the staircase at the new Museum of Mathematics in Manhattan.

So why, until now, has there apparently been no major museum of mathematics in the United States? Why, when so many identities and advocacies have representation in the museological pantheon, has math been so neglected? Here and there, perhaps, a hobbyist has displayed puzzles, and our gargantuan science centers occasionally deem it worth their while to descend into algebraic abstraction. But a museum devoted to math? You have to immerse yourself in the history of science museums in Europe — where math sits at the foundation of things — to get an inkling of what it might mean.

Or, for an entirely different experience, you can go to Madison Square Park in Manhattan to see the new Museum of Mathematics, which opens on Saturday. It refers to itself as MoMath (and since it is near MoSex — the Museum of Sex — that means we now have a museum district explicitly evoking the mind-body problem).

MoMath is not what you might expect. At first you might not even guess its subject. There are a few giveaways, particularly if you recognize the symbol for pi on the door or discover the pentagonal sinks in the bathrooms. But what is that cylinder constructed of plastic tubes stretching toward the ceiling with a seat inside (“Hyper Hyperboloid”)? Or that transparent wagon that slips along multicolored acorns in a trough (“Coaster Rollers”)? Or a tricycle with three square wheels, each of a different size, rolling along a bumpy circular track (“Square-Wheeled Trike”)?

And what is that screen on which you paint electronic designs with a brush (“Polypaint”)? The two adjustable sloping paths on which you race objects (“Tracks of Galileo”)? The pixelated illuminated floor that responds to your movements (“Math Square”)?

Read more ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/arts/design/museum-of-mathematics-at-madison-square-park.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"25 Lessons About First Graders"

25 Lessons About First Graders

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: December 17, 2012

Among the many horrors associated with the killing of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., is that they were all first graders. On Sunday I spoke with Joanne Strongin, a longtime first-grade teacher at E.M. Baker Elementary School in Great Neck, N.Y. Together we put together a list of 25 things we have learned about first graders.

Multimedia

 

1. First graders like to say:

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“He told me to.”

“He did it too.”

“Stop cutting.”

2. First-grade teachers say, “If he jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge, too?”

3. At the start of the school year, first graders are supposed to know 20 “sight words” (it, go, to, the, is) and by the year’s end 100 snap words — read in a snap — (play, they, went, want, today, mother, father.)

4. First graders love to tell visitors to their classroom that they do not take naps after lunch like little baby kindergartners.

5. First graders go to the bathroom three or four times a day.

6. Ms. Strongin’s first graders are supposed to keep washing their hands for as long as it takes them to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.

7. First-grade snack time is 11.

8. By the end of the year, several first graders have lost their two front teeth and a few can tie their shoes.

9. At recess, Baker Elementary first graders’ favorite game is “Fox Oh Fox.” (First-grade foxes race around trying to catch first-grade chickens.)

10. First-grade boys skip when they’re happy.

11. First graders’ favorite book to have Ms. Strongin read out loud is “Knuffle Bunny,” by Mo Willems.

12. First graders claim to hate tattle tales but tattle at every opportunity.

13. First graders are old enough to know the rules, and young enough to turn themselves in for breaking them.

14. First graders love blocks, Legos and marble mazes.

15. First graders love coming to school.

16. First graders fall out of their chairs.

17. To remember to cross their legs when sitting on the floor, first graders sing, “Crisscross apple sauce.”

18. When first graders are supposed to be paying attention, Ms. Strongin says, “Eyes Up,” and they say, “Hands empty.”

19. When it’s time for lunch, Ms. Strongin says “Line order,” and they say, “Straight and quiet.”

20. First graders are taught if they don’t have a tissue, to sneeze into their elbows.

21. Long ago, during a visit to a first-grade class in East Orange, N.J., I asked the Rogers twins, Kendall and Kenneth, to tell me the story of Martin Luther King Jr.

‘'This one time Rosa Parks was sitting in the front of the bus,'’ Kendall said, ‘'and this white lady said, ‘Get up,’ and that bus driver called the police.'’

‘'And,'’ said Kenneth, ‘'Rosa Parks called up Martin Luther King and said, ‘Get me out of jail, Martin.'”

22. I once visited a church school in Canton, Ohio, where the first graders were called Sparks (Sparks for Jesus) and each week earned bonus Sparky Bucks to be redeemed for toys at the church store.

23. Years ago, I was writing a heartwarming feature about a man who dressed up as Santa Claus and brought gifts to schoolchildren, when a first grader started yelling, “Not real, not real.”

24. When my daughter Annie was in first grade, her goal was to read the entire “Boxcar Children” series (79 books at the time).

25. First graders think their teachers know everything and love their parents unconditionally.

"8 Ways to Unplug Your Holidays"

8 Ways to Unplug Your Holidays

Electronics gifts are big with kids this year, but with a little planning you can balance the screen time with a little face time.

by Caroline Knorr | Dec. 7, 2012 | Family media management

What's topping your kids' holiday wish lists this year? Chances are it has a screen, Internet access, and games. And if they're lucky enough to unwrap a Nintendo Wii U or an iPad Mini, then it's up to you to figure out how to balance the fun with family time. (See our editors' picks for Wii U games and iPad apps.)
As much as we all love and depend on our high-tech toys, our reliance on them -- let's face it -- can get in the way of the warm and cozy family time we so carefully scheduled (probably on our electronic calendar!).
An outright ban on digital devices won't win your kids' respect -- or compliance. But with a little planning and intentional involvement, you can balance your family's tech activities with much-needed face time. Here's how:

1. Be jolly -- but firm. Explain to your kids that you want to downsize -- not demolish -- your family's reliance on technology over the holidays. Let them know that you'll be enforcing stricter time limits to create more quality family time. And tell them that the rules will apply to the grown-ups as well!

2. Make a list (and check it with your kids). Schedule some daily tech time for yourself and your kids. Get their input on which devices they absolutely can't live without, and allow some limited use.

3. Have a download derby. Browse the app store together. Look for games and activities that the whole family can enjoy, like our Multiplayer App recommendations.

4. Make setup fun, not frustrating. No matter how easy to use companies make new devices, there's always some (often frustrating) setup time. Truth be told, kids often figure out thorny tech glitches faster than parents, so involve your kids in the process. Use that time to discuss responsible use of the new device.

5. Try some tech togetherness. Unplugging for its own sake isn't the point. Family time is. Plan a night of video games, movies, or maybe preselected YouTube videos that you can all enjoy together.

6. Combine on- and offline activities. Many new devices offer cameras and video-capture cababilities. Have fun documenting your family memories and consider compiling them into journals, cards, and scrapbooks. This is a perfect time to share your own holiday memories with your kids.

7. If no creatures are stirring … don't check your email. Remember, your kids learn their media habits partly from you. Use quiet time to reflect on ways you can maximize the benefits of technology without letting it take over your family's life.

8. Have an old-fashioned holiday. Challenge your family to choose low- or no-tech versions of favorite activities. Generate fun on your own steam -- no WiFi, data, or plugs. When you balance these activities with your usual routine, it may actually make your kids more appreciative of what they have.

Understanding How Children Develop Empathy

By PERRI KLASS, M.D.

Joyce Hesselberth

18 and Under

Dr. Perri Klass on family health.

The mother was trying to hold the baby still, and I was pulling gently on the ear, angling for a better look at the infant’s eardrum. The wriggling baby didn’t like any of it, and her whimpering quickly turned to full-fledged wails.

Suddenly the baby’s 3-year-old brother, an innocent bystander in no danger of having his own ears examined, began to wail as well, creating the kind of harmonic cacophony that makes passers-by wince in recognition. And the poor mother, her hands full, could only look over and reassure him: Your sister is O.K., don’t worry, don’t feel bad.

But really, was that why the 3-year-old was crying? Was he tired and frustrated, scared by the noise, jealous of his mother’s attention? Or was he, in fact, upset because his sister was upset — an early step toward empathy, sympathy, kindness and charity?

The capacity to notice the distress of others, and to be moved by it, can be a critical component of what is called prosocial behavior, actions that benefit others: individuals, groups or society as a whole. Psychologists, neurobiologists and even economists are increasingly interested in the overarching question of how and why we become our better selves.

How do children develop prosocial behavior, and is there in fact any way to encourage it? If you do, will you eventually get altruistic adults, the sort who buy shoes for a homeless man on a freezing night, or rush to lift a commuter pushed onto the subway tracks as the train nears?
Nancy Eisenberg, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, is an expert on the development in children of prosocial behavior, “voluntary behavior intended to benefit another.” Such behavior is often examined through the child’s ability to perceive and react to someone else’s distress. Attempts at concern and reassurance can be seen in children as young as 1.

Dr. Eisenberg draws a distinction between empathy and sympathy: “Empathy, at least the way I break it out, is experiencing the same emotion or highly similar emotion to what the other person is feeling,” she said. “Sympathy is feeling concern or sorrow for the other person.” While that may be based in part on empathy, she said, or on memory, “it’s not feeling the same emotion.”

By itself, intense empathy — really feeling someone else’s pain — can backfire, causing so much personal distress that the end result is a desire to avoid the source of the pain, researchers have found. The ingredients of prosocial behavior, from kindness to philanthropy, are more complex and varied.
They include the ability to perceive others’ distress, the sense of self that helps sort out your own identity and feelings, the regulatory skills that prevent distress so severe it turns to aversion, and the cognitive and emotional understanding of the value of helping.

Twin studies have suggested that there is some genetic component to prosocial tendencies. When reacting to an adult who is pretending to be distressed, for example, identical twins behave more like each other than do fraternal twins. And as children grow up, these early manifestations of sympathy and empathy become part of complex decision-making and personal morality.
“There is some degree of heritability,” said Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, a senior research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has done some of these twin studies. But she notes that the effect is small: “There is no gene for empathy, there is no gene for altruism. What’s heritable may be some personality characteristics.”

Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, described two broad theories to explain prosocial behavior. One, he said, was essentially motivational: It feels good to help other people. Economists have also looked at the question of altruism, and have hypothesized about a “warm glow effect” to account for charitable giving.
Experimental studies have shown that the same brain region that is activated when people win money for themselves is active when they give to charity — that is, that there is a kind of neurologic “reward” built into the motivational system of the brain.

“Charitable giving can activate the same pleasure-reward centers, the dopaminergic centers, in the brain that are very closely tied to habit formation,” said Bill Harbaugh, an economist at the University of Oregon who studies altruism. “This suggests it might be possible to foster the same sorts of habits for charitable giving you see with other sorts of habits.”
The other theory of prosocial behavior, Dr. Huettel said, is based on social cognition — the recognition that other people have needs and goals. The two theories aren’t mutually exclusive: Cognitive understanding accompanied by a motivational reward reinforces prosocial behavior.

But shaping prosocial behavior is a tricky business. For instance, certain financial incentives seem to deter prosocial impulses, a phenomenon called reward undermining, Dr. Huettel said.
Consider that in the United States, historically, blood donors could be paid, but not in Britain. And the British donated more blood. “When you give extrinsic motivations, they can supplant the intrinsic ones,” he said.

What would the experts say about fostering prosocial behavior in children, from kindness on to charity?
Parental modeling is important, of course; sympathy and compassion should be part of children’s experience long before they know the words.
“Explain how other people feel,” Dr. Eisenberg said. “Reflect the child’s feelings, but also point out, look, you hurt Johnny’s feelings.”

Don’t offer material rewards for prosocial behavior, but do offer opportunities to do good — opportunities that the child will see as voluntary. And help children see themselves and frame their own behavior as generous, kind, helpful, as the mother in my exam room did.

Working with a child’s temperament, taking advantage of an emerging sense of self and increasing cognitive understanding of the world and helped by the reward centers of the brain, parents can try to foster that warm glow and the worldview that goes with it. Empathy, sympathy, compassion, kindness and charity begin at home, and very early.

"Parenthood and the New York Times Notable Book List"

Parenthood and the New York Times Notable Books List

By KJ DELL'ANTONIA

I possess three of the books on the list, in hard copy, with intent to read.¹ Another I read excerpted in so many places that I didn’t feel as if I needed to read the actual book.² One is on my Kindle app, but honesty requires that I admit that I am never, ever going to finish it.³ I’m partway through two more and uncertain if and when I will go on (which probably means I won’t).⁴ There are seven more on my to-read list.5 Another I bought, tried, then set aside after a few chapters.⁶
Which means that of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012, I have read, in their entirety, exactly zero.

I read a lot less since I had children. Or maybe since I grew up and found myself with a job and other obligations, or maybe since the advent of all the many, many distractions and must-reads available on my desktop, laptop and iPad.

Where once I gobbled a book nearly every day, reading while in line for concerts and college basketball games, reading and missing all the scenery on cross-country car and train trips, and taking every opportunity to pick up a book, now I read a little every night, a little some evenings in the intervals of helping children with homework and making dinner, a little when I can sit down on the weekend, and a lot on every plane ride or vacation — nearly the only moments when travel time isn’t also work time for me. All of which means I just don’t rack up the books the way I once did.


I miss the feeling of being “lost in a book,” and it’s harder to get it back with every passing year. I’m uncertain why that is  — am I out of practice? More critical of fiction, and so less able to be absorbed? More distracted in general, by both the swirling family life around me and life online? I read more when I had nursing infants, and less — much less — in their crazy toddler years. This year felt to me like a return to reading, of a sort — for the first time, it’s become possible to read, although usually not deeply when all four of my children (6, 7, 8 and 11 years old) are home and awake. My hope is that reading is returning to my life.

What books did I read, and love, this year? “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown. “Aftermath” by Rachel Cusk (although her voice is so strong, and her prose so packed, that I can’t read it before bed, and thus I haven’t finished yet). “Shadow of Night” by Deborah Harkness.

Two books by Motherlode contributors have stuck with me (there were many greats): Joel Yanofsky’s “Bad Animals” and Karen le Billon’s “French Kids Eat Everything.” I continue to read, reread and refer back to Madeline Levine’s “Teach Your Children Well.” And I was so disturbed and provoked by Augusten Burroughs’s “This is How: Help for the Self,” that I read bits aloud to my husband, who then took it and read parts of it himself, and some of it even back to me. That’s a first, which makes “This is How” a notable book in my mind, if not exactly a beloved one. (The only other book we both read this year, at least in part, was Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” a New York Times Notable Book of 2011 — a list from which I, all good intentions aside, completely read exactly one book.⁷

What’s your NYT Notables score (and who are we kidding, some of us do keep score) in the “read it,” “want to read it” and “didn’t finish it” categories, and what other books did you love this year? How has becoming a parent left its mark on your reading time? And of all the to-read books on your list, where will you start? (Me? “Flight Behavior.”)

"Is Homework Too Hard for Today's Parents?"

December 4, 2012, 1:36 PM

Is Homework Too Hard For Today’s Parents?

 

By Sue Shellenbarger

Steve Hebert for The Wall Street Journal

The ongoing debate over homework focuses mostly on kids’ mounting workloads , and some schools’ efforts to curtail them.

A growing number of parents are struggling with another homework trend that threatens to sink their juggle – an increase in extremely complicated homework projects, from neighborhood field trips to do research, to expansive dioramas or multimedia presentations to report on what students have learned, according to parents I interviewed for last Wednesday’s “Work & Family” column on homework.

Chris Jordan, a mother of seven children ages 7 through 18, has seen it all. Her kids have gotten assignments to make hand-crafted trading cards of endangered species; to embellish book reports with five-color hand-drawn sketches of the protagonist; to design a restaurant menu that might have been used in colonial Jamestown; to write a rap song about the elements of the periodic table; and to research, design and color a 30-square “poster quilt” about their family heritage. One of her friends, she says, had to drive her kid around town to be photographed in front of various businesses.

“One of the biggest challenges for me is not to be exasperated by some of the assignments,” says Jordan, a writer for AlphaMom. She sometimes yearns for simpler times, when parents drilled their kids on the multiplication tables or lists of spelling words.

Another mother said she feels like “a funding source” for her two high-schoolers’ elaborate projects, including purchasing posterboard and other materials recently to create a large diorama on the expansion of the American West.

Other projects demand speedy, ad hoc training in tech skills. One of my high-schoolers was required to research, produce and present a video on a favorite sports star or public figure. The assignment got done, but I’m afraid I learned more about using iMovie than my teen.

Teachers deserve credit for trying to design creative assignments that appeal to kids with varying abilities, including those who love art, crafts or music. And these challenging assignments may be great preparation for the jobs of tomorrow, when workers will need to integrate diverse skills to solve problems.
But they can be murder for the busy families of today.

"Apps Give Preschoolers a First Look at TV Shows"

Apps Give Preschoolers a First Look at TV Shows

Susanna Martin/Nickelodeon

Eliya Gyob-Serrette playing with Bubble Guppies: Animal School Day, an educational mobile app from Nickelodeon.

By ELIZABETH JENSEN

In 2014, the preschool cable network Nick Jr. plans to introduce a television show featuring a little boy, his miniature pet dragon and a magic stick.

But the show, “Wallykazam,” will not be new to users of smartphones and tablets. Educational applications built around it will start appearing in app stores late next year, making “Wallykazam” Nickelodeon’s first major show to be introduced as a mobile product first, said Steve Youngwood, Nickelodeon’s executive vice president and general manager for digital media.

Driving the change, at Nickelodeon and other preschool television brands, are parents who are increasingly putting mobile devices into preschoolers’ hands and laps.

According to new research commissioned by Sesame Workshop, producer of PBS’s “Sesame Street,” mobile device ownership is booming as TV set ownership declines. Eighty-eight percent of the parents surveyed said they owned a television, down from 95 percent in 2010.

Twenty-one percent said their children first interacted with “Sesame Street” someplace other than television, with YouTube and PBS.org the top alternative sources. (PBS said separately that its free PBS Kids Video app, which has been downloaded 2.4 million times, reached 120 million streams of PBS Kids shows in November, surpassing 100 million for the first time.)

“On-air does still drive digital,” said Diana Polvere, Sesame Workshop’s vice president for market research, citing the 79 percent of viewers who still come to television first. But given the rapid changes, she said, Sesame’s research will now be conducted every six months instead of every two years.

Nickelodeon’s research, done in April and updated in October, shows striking growth in educational app use. In October, 27 percent of United States households with children ages 3 to 5 had an iPad, up from 22 percent in April. In those households, 40 percent of preschoolers used the iPad for educational apps, up from 27 percent in April.

The study also found that Apple device users were willing to pay 15 to 23 percent more for educational apps than for general apps.

“Parents want to feel good about what they are purchasing and downloading for their kids,” said Scott Chambers, Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president for digital worldwide distribution. Adding an educational element to an entertaining app, he said, “makes everybody feel better.”

Parents’ feelings aside, apps are strong educational tools, said Lesli Rotenberg, who oversees PBS’s children’s programming, including its more than two dozen apps.

While television “is somewhat of a passive experience” for children, she said, interactive apps give them immediate feedback and tailored experiences that become more difficult as they gain skills.

Though numerous producers are entering the app business, three of the top 10 paid educational apps in the iTunes store last week were Nickelodeon’s. They included the $1.99 Bubble Guppies: Animal School Day, already profitable six weeks after its introduction, Nickelodeon said. A Team Umizoomi math app was still in the top 10 after a year on the market.

Originally scheduled for August release, the Bubble Guppies app, filled with the same silly jokes as the show, was revised after focus group testing with preschoolers showed, among other things, that their small fingers had a hard time maneuvering a virtual latch and that the children wanted more control over their exploration.

“We were hearing kids say in testing: ‘I want to play with the dolphin. I want to play with the penguin,’ ” said Jordana Drell, Nickelodeon’s senior director of preschool games.

Nickelodeon’s educational apps normally take six to eight months to create and, even with lush graphics like the shimmery underwater background in Bubble Guppies, cost about half as much as a single episode of one of the company’s preschool shows, officials said.

The Bubble Guppies creators, Jonny Belt and Robert Scull, said they approached the app as they would a television episode, reading the 90-page game document aloud, technical material and all. “That really brings it to life, and you know what you’re getting,” Mr. Scull said.

A Nickelodeon rival, Disney Junior, has taken a less integrated approach to apps, developing television shows first and apps later to expand on the content, said Albert Cheng, executive vice president for digital media at the Disney/ABC Television Group.

The free Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Road Rally Appisode, released in May, is a repurposed version of an episode of the “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” television program, reconfigured to be highly interactive.

It proved so popular that “we definitely feel there’s something here we want to invest in,” Mr. Cheng said.

Although the app had educational elements, it was not intended as such. The sprawling Walt Disney Company has published educational apps through other units, however.

Since releasing its first app three years ago, Sesame Workshop has added more than three dozen, including Elmo Loves 123s, which was introduced Dec. 10 and draws on new research for developers and parents that Sesame plans to release this week. App users, Mr. Chambers said, tend to come back regularly, a loyalty that executives have noted as they consider future expansion in the category.

The rush to apps is changing the development process for PBS, which will no longer develop television-only shows, Ms. Rotenberg said. PBS’s newest property, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” came out as an app — already the company’s third best-selling — the day of the television premiere in September.

Ms. Rotenberg said her team had “sent away” a number of producers who came to PBS with ideas for television shows with no thought-out mobile component, telling them, “ ‘Come back when you have a plan.’ ”