Want to Get Kids Excited About STEM? Let Them Build Robots

Getting more students to pursue studies—and careers—in science, technology, engineering, and math is important for the economic success of our country and of the world. But catalyzing that interest requires more than drilling kids on facts in a textbook. I work as an engineer, but I also work as a FIRST LEGO League volunteer, and I’ve seen first hand the impact building LEGO robots through our program has on kids.

FLL is one of four programs offered by the national organization FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)—which was created by famous inventor Dean Kamen to inspire more talented American students to pursue careers in science and technology. It aims to increase the number of STEM professionals with the skills required to solve real world problems.

It’s primarily an after-school STEM program, but it’s also offered by many neighborhood and youth organizations, such as Girl Scouts, 4-H Clubs and Boys and Girls Clubs. We work with students aged 9-14 and get them excited about doing science and technology so that they will want to take STEM classes in high school and college and hopefully pursue STEM careers. Unlike many academic STEM programs, FLL is fun and is accessible to students with a wide range of physical and learning disabilities.

What we’re doing here in the Los Angeles is working. In 2012, our region had a record level of participation—up 30 percent from 2011. And thanks to a $15,000 donation from Time Warner Cable, we were able to host the FIRST LEGO League tournaments across Southern California. We had 2,400 young people organized into 297 teams to build robots, research problems, create solutions, develop presentations, and compete in 26 tournaments in four counties in Southern California.

The way it works is FLL teams register between May and September. Then, during September and October, they design, build, program and test LEGO MINDSTORMS robots to play a game with missions related to the Challenge theme on a field about the size of a ping pong table. The teams participate in high-energy practice, qualifying and championship tournaments in late October through mid-December.
At the tournaments, teams compete to see which team can achieve the highest score on the robot game and are judged for awards in the areas of robot design, research project, and core values/teamwork. The top 30 percent of teams attending the ten regional qualifying tournaments advanced to two regional championship tournaments. The top two teams from each regional championship advance to international championship tournaments. Worldwide, over 20,500 FLL teams participated in 889 qualifying tournaments and 124 regional championship tournaments in 2012.

The kids get excited because the program brings the fun and excitement of sporting events to science and technology via robotics competitions. They also think like scientists and engineers to solve real problems in their communities related to the Challenge theme, which is different each year. The 2012 Challenge was Senior Solutions—improving the quality of life for seniors by helping them continue to be independent, engaged, and connected in their communities.

The teams talked to seniors to identify problems they faced in their daily living, consulted experts in the field, developed creative and practical solutions, and presented those solutions to members of their communities. Their creative presentations of their work on the project frequently involved role playing and were always very informative. Teams are encouraged to practice a strong set of core values, including inspiring others, teamwork and what we call “Gracious Professionalism.”

All of these activities take the dedication of hundreds of volunteers—coaches, mentors, referees, judges and event volunteers. But the effort is worth it. We’re eager to help inspire the next generation of problem solvers by connecting young people to the wonders of STEM.

Digital Reading on the Rise for Children (With a Qualifier)

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

David Maxwell for The New York Times David Maxwell for The New York Times 

 

Alexis White, 7, a second grader in Green, Ohio, using an iPad during class. The iPad is gaining popularity as a reading device.

 

Digital reading is rising fast among children ages 6 to 17, but this is not necessarily translating into a greater desire to read, according to a report released on Monday by Scholastic Inc.

Every other year since 2006, Scholastic, a publisher and distributor of children’s books, has surveyed American families about their attitudes toward reading and literacy.

The latest study, the Kids and Family Reading Report, conducted with Harrison Group, showed both the advantages and the drawbacks of the digital age when it comes to encouraging reading among young people.
For example, the percentage of children who have read an e-book has almost doubled since 2010, to 46 percent. Yet, during the same period, the number of girls who reported being frequent readers declined to 36 percent from 42 percent.

The survey, conducted from Aug. 29 to Sept. 10, 2012, was based on a sample of 1,074 children and their parents: 2,148 respondents in total.

The change seems to have been brought on by a shift in the kind of digital devices that children, like adults, are using to read, said Francine Alexander, Scholastic’s chief academic officer. They are increasingly using tablets, like iPads, which allow for more activities than just reading. In fact, slightly more children reported having read a book on a tablet than on a plain e-reader device.

“When kids are using the digital devices, the girls were social networking more,” Ms. Alexander said. Many parents, she added, complained that their children spent too much time playing video games.
“Managing screen time is the challenge of parenting today,” she said.

Still, the technology is here to stay, and the study revealed ways in which it could increase reading among children. For example, about one-fourth of the boys who had read an e-book said they were reading more books for fun. Boys have traditionally lagged behind girls in reading.

Also, half of those in an older age range, from 9 to 17, said they would read more books for fun if they had greater access to e-books.

Children said e-books were particularly good when they wanted to be secretive about reading. But at night in bed, most children said they still liked to read books in print.

Children Are Not Our Friends (Until They Are)

By MICHELLE BLAKE

When my children were little, I was always a bit baffled by parents who talked about being friends with their children. Maybe I expect too much from my friends, but I like to hang out with people who read chapter books and bathe without being told. I’m big on reciprocity in my friendships — we exchange views and experience and occasionally good advice. I don’t tell you when to go to bed. You don’t tell me when you’re done pooping.

As my children got older, the friend idea seemed to get more popular with other parents. Meanwhile, my daughter and I debated what was appropriate school-wear for a 10th grader. And why an adult had to be in the house when her own friends had parties. And why, with our family history, drinking was a lot like sticking a piece of  lighted  dynamite in your mouth.

I didn’t have long heart-to-hearts with my children about my problems at work or my relationship with their father. I didn’t expect them to drop what they were doing to lend an ear or cheer me up, though I did that for them when I could.

Even as older teenagers, my kids still needed, one might even go so far as to speculate that they wanted, a voice of authority — another service I don’t provide for my friends. They needed to know they were supposed to be home at a certain time. They needed to know that we cared about what grades they were making (not necessarily A’s, but the best they could do) and where they were after sports practice. I don’t mean they asked us to do these things or that they frequently expressed their admiration for our parenting skills. Though I like to be admired occasionally by my friends, being admired by my teenage children was not a top priority (fortunately).


I am admittedly a formalist, a fogey, someone fond of rules and roles in human interaction (not so much in other areas, like music or poetry, but people strike me as fragile and in need of lots of clarity). As an adult, a parent, a college professor, I do my best work when the young people I raise and teach understand our relationship. I’m there to help them, not the other way around. And they don’t owe me anything except simple human respect. Caring for the young is a duty I adore; it is not about reciprocity.

But something lovely has started to happen over the last year. Slowly, without thinking about it, I am becoming friends with my children. I suspect it began when I realized it was none of my business how long my son waited to start looking for an apartment when he was about to begin a new school year in Manhattan. And when I understood that some personal decisions my daughter made, which I may or may not have loved, had nothing to do with me. I try not to offer advice where it isn’t invited, and I find myself asking for their advice more and more often.

My one-handed son (born with a short left arm) has hiked the Appalachian Trail and is now an avid rock-climber. He is also a serious film student and aficionado who introduced me to Bresson’s “A Man Escaped,” now one of my favorites. His older sister has just completed a grueling graduate program. I have watched her face down the demons of self-doubt and exhaustion — old familiars of mine — and come out shining. Last year, she nudged me until I sent out a long-neglected collection of poems I’d written over the past 30 years. I now have a published chapbook.

From my children I have learned persistence, courage and sheer goodness. Maybe because their lives matter so much to me, these lessons seem to stick. Their travels widen my world, their work enhances my knowledge, their interests feed my spirit. I turn to my daughter and son with questions about music, technology, movies, books, art, law and, yes, life. And because of the wise-hearted adults they have become, their answers are often the best I get. It was well worth the wait.

---

Michelle Blake, a novelist, is working on a book of essays called “Grown Children.”

"Best TV for Girls"

Best TV for Girls 

 

In a world full of TV catfights, we found nine shows that are actually good for girls.

by Sierra Filucci | Jan. 7, 2013 | Role models and stereotypes, Family media management

Best friends really are the best. For girls and young women, they're the ones who psych you up for fun, admire your talents, help you through tough days, and let you ramble on about your crazy theories.
But if you watch much TV -- from The Real Housewives to American Idol -- you might think girl friendships were something entirely different. Throwing drinks in your friend's face, calling her a tramp, or yanking her hair might seem like normal parts of being buds. Even scripted favorites like Nashville and Pretty Little Liars regularly pit women against each other.

But there are plenty of shows that don't wallow in the negative. By choosing entertainment that sends a better message to your kids, you can proactively counteract negative female stereotypes. Here are our favorite weapons against girl-on-girl hate.

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, 4+ (The Hub): It's super cutesy, but this animated preschool favorite shows girls (or girly ponies) working together to solve problems and sort out their differences in healthy, age-appropriate ways.

Ruby Gloom, 5+ (streaming): If cutesy isn't your kid's thing, this goth take on girl friendship might be more her style. Ruby, Iris, and Misery problem solve and cooperate in a ghoulishly fun setting.

H2O: Just Add Water, 7+ (Nickelodeon): This live-action drama focuses on three teen girls who find they have magical mermaid powers. As they make their way through high school and its attendant social dramas, the three stick together, showing the true power of friendship.

SciGirls , 7+ (PBS): This science-oriented educational show highlights girls working together to construct or develop experiments to learn about the world around them. Girls encourage and have fun together while modeling enthusiasm for science.

Jem and the Holograms, 8+ (The Hub): In this flashy animated series from the 1980s -- now airing on The Hub --  a group of rock star women plays music and battles meanies as a team.

Tia & Tamera, 13+ (Style): Real-life sisters go through ups and downs as they navigate different stages of their lives, but in the end they're always there for each other.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 13+ (DVD): This oldie but goodie never fell victim to silly stereotypes about female friendships. Buffy and Willow are best friends through thick and thin, and even Buffy's female rivals don't fight her over a man -- but rather over the survival of the world.

New Girl, 13+ (Fox): Jess and Cece are childhood friends who've taken different paths in life. But even though they don't always enjoy the same activities or agree with each other's life paths, they stay loyal and committed to each other.

Parks and Recreation, 14+ (NBC) -- Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones are hilarious and realistic as friends and co-workers who navigate the wacky world of relationships, careers, and camping trips. Their friendship shows that they can stand by each other, even if they sometimes disagree. That's what real friendship is, right?

3 Things You Should Never Do For Your Children

Posted on January 5, 2013

Written by Kim Droze

Thursday, 27 May 201

As parents, we only want the best for our children. But sometimes our judgment is clouded, and our actions can actually impede our kids’ progress. By nature, we want to see our children succeed, even if it means giving them a gentle nudge. Unfortunately for some parents, that nudge often turns into a huge push, and before we know it, we’re actually doing things for our children that they should be doing for themselves. Admit it. We’ve all been there. You see that sweet little face struggling to tie his shoe, write a Pulitzer-worthy paragraph or even make his bed. When you sense his frustration, your maternal instinct kicks into high gear, and the next thing you know, you’re doing the deed for him. Your intentions may be good, but the end results are not. You’ve essentially become the dreaded helicopter parent, a mom or dad who gives eagle-eye attention to every aspect of the child’s life. From report cards to recreational activities, you’re the gatekeeper of your child’s affairs. You exact precise oversight in everything he does do to ensure that there is nothing holding him back. The term “helicopter parent” was actually coined in the 1990 self-help guide Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility. It’s frequently used to describe those parents who sweep in to rescue their children from the perils of higher education. For some, it’s hard to believe that parents would actually appeal to a college professor on behalf of their young adult offspring, but it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. This trend begins long before teens ever don their cap and gown and head off to college. It’s a behavior that we as adults begin even in the earliest stages of parenting. However, helicopter parenting can have some serious implications on our children. While it might seem like we are doing our children a favor at the time, that couldn’t be further from the truth. What we’re essentially creating are children who are reliant on us for everything. Parenting expert and educational psychologist Michele Borba addresses the trend of helicopter parenting on her personal Web site, www.micheleborba.com. On her blog, the author of No More Misbehavin’ and Don’t Give Me That Attitude points out that children will continue to sink if you don’t teach them to swim. Dr. Borba writes, “Look down the road at the big picture. If you keep on with any hovering behavior now, how will your kids turn out later? Every once in a while, we need to fast forward your parenting and think ahead. “It just may help that you alter you current response with your kids. And here’s a big reason why: Researchers are seeing this phenomenon of “parental hovering” (aka micro-managing, overparenting or helicoptering) as a dangerous trend when it comes to how our kids turn out. The long and the short is: If we keep the hovering we’ll rob our kids of an essential trait for L.I.F.E. called self-reliance!” And Dr. Borba is definitely onto something. The ramifications of helicopter parenting are far reaching. Take a recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive for the National Endowment for Financial Education. It showed that 40 percent of American adults aged 18-39 reside at home or have done so in the recent past. That figure also excludes students. Even more disturbing is the fact that 26 percent of parents with adult children living at home have incurred their own debt to support these adult children, with 7 percent delaying retirement. While it may seem like a giant leap to take, the point is it’s never too early to teach your children to be independent. You want your children to be able to stand on their own two feet so they can make the transition from impressionable children to responsible adults. Here are three things you should never do for your children: 1. Homework – How many times have you watched parents do their children’s homework for them? One minute you’re shaking your head in disgust and the next minute you’re holding a #2 pencil in your hand writing an essay on the French revolution. Face it. It’s easy to get sucked in by your child. Those frustrating cries of “I can’t do it!” can weaken even the most steadfast parent. Sometimes it seems far easier just to do the work for your child. But before you give in, stop, look and listen hard. Your child first should attempt to the work on his own. If he is genuinely confused about the subject at hand, take a moment to look over the questions. Ask your child what he thinks the questions mean. If possible, show examples of how to solve the problem. Avoid doing the actual problem for your child. Once you feel like he has a grasp on the subject matter, send him back to his desk to finish the work. Do not sit over him while he is doing his homework, as he will be inclined to ask for further assistance repeatedly. After all of the work is completed, glance over the assignment for any glaring errors. When you find mistakes, have your child redo the problems until they are correct. While it’s fine to show examples, brainstorm and encourage, do not — and we repeat — do not do the work for him. Doing reports, projects and homework independently will actually increase your child’s self-confidence and self esteem. Nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment your child will have knowing that he earned that “A” on his own. 2. Speak for them – It’s far too easy to put words in your child’s mouth. Children are works in progress. As they get older, they come into their own. However, being a child can often be intimidating. Children are often insecure and, at times, unable to properly express themselves. In many cases, he may expect you to be his spokesperson.Whether it’s asking a neighborhood child to play or requesting a cup of water at a restaurant, always encourage your child to use his voice. It might be just as easy for you to do your child’s bidding, but how will he ever gain self- confidence if he never has to speak for himself? Oftentimes, we feel compelled to speak on our child’s behalf. For example, in school your child might have issues with a fellow student. If the situation puts your child in danger, it’s understandable that you would get involved. However, if things haven’t escalated, encourage your child to work things out on his own. It’s fine to make suggestions of things he might say to smooth things over and resolve the conflict. However, try not to take things into your own hands unless it’s an absolute necessity. Keep this important rule of thumb in mind when you are also among a group of people. When your child is asked a question, it might be instinctive to respond for him. Don’t. Give your child a chance to speak for himself. Over time, you will notice him becoming more and more confident in the way he expresses himself. Remember, practice makes perfect. 3. Choose their friends – This one is a real doozy. It’s only natural to want to pick your child’s friends – whether it’s the sweet little boy from Sunday school or that adorable girl from the playground. In your mind, you think you know what – and who – is best for your child. And you probably do. But this is one of those lessons your child needs to learn on his own. While you will probably be responsible for fostering many of their friendships through play dates in the early years, your child will be more and more inclined to choose his own pals as he gets older. This is one of those cases when you should go with the flow. Just because you might be friends with someone doesn’t necessarily mean your child when be friends with that person’s child. First and foremost, don’t force it. Your child will only resent you in the end if you make him spend time with someone he doesn’t particularly care for. There’s nothing wrong with introducing him to new faces. However, let him take the lead when it comes to building lasting friendships. At the same time, you still have a responsibility to ensure that your child is playing with kids who have similar values. In other words, you probably want to prevent your children from hanging out with kids who swear, steal, misbehave and have other habits you don’t want your own child picking up. Always be aware of who your child is hanging around. At the end of the day, what you don’t do for your children is every bit as important as what you do. Sometimes a more hands-off approach actually will benefit your child.

"Gifted, Talented, and Separated"

A System Divided

Gifted, Talented and Separated

In One School, Students Are Divided by Gifted Label — and Race

Dave Sanders for The New York Times

DISPARITY A fourth-grade gifted class taught by Angelo Monserrate at Public School 163. More Photos »

By AL BAKER

IT is just a metal door with three windows, the kind meant to keep the clamor of an elementary school hallway from piercing a classroom’s quiet. Other than paint the color of bubble gum, it is unremarkable.

A System Divided

This is the fourth and final article in a series examining the racial distribution of students in New York City’s public schools and its impact on their opportunities and achievements.

Multimedia

Slide Show

Are They Gifted? Or Segregated?

Graphic

But the pink door on Room 311 at Public School 163 on the Upper West Side represents a barrier belied by its friendly hue. On one side are 21 fourth graders labeled gifted and talented by New York City’s school system. They are coursing through public school careers stamped accelerated.

And they are mostly white.

On the other side, sometimes sitting for reading lessons on the floor of the hallway, are those in the school’s vast majority: They are enrolled in general or special education programs.

They are mostly children of color.

“I know what we look like,” Carolyn M. Weinberg, a 28-year veteran of P.S. 163, said of the racial disparities as she stood one day in the third-floor hallway between Room 318, where she and a colleague teach a fourth-grade general education class, and the one where Angelo Monserrate teaches the gifted class, Room 311.

“I know what you see,” said Ms. Weinberg.

There are 652 students enrolled at P.S. 163 this year, from prekindergarten through fifth grade. Roughly 63 percent of them are black and Hispanic; whites make up 27 percent; and Asians account for 6 percent.

This reflects the flavor of the neighborhood, and roughly matches the New York City school system’s overall demographics.

Yet in P.S. 163’s gifted classes, the racial dynamics of the neighborhood, the school itself and the school system are turned upside down.

Of the 205 children enrolled in the nine gifted classes, 97, or 47 percent, are white; another 31 of the students, or 15 percent, are Asian. And a combined 65 students, or 32 percent, are black and Hispanic.

In the 21 other classes that enroll the school’s remaining 447 students, only 80, or 18 percent, are white.

The disparities are most apparent in the lower grades.

Of the 24 students in Karen Engler’s kindergarten gifted class, one is black and three are Hispanic. Ayelet Cutler’s first-grade gifted class has 21 students, one of them black and two Hispanic. There are two blacks and two Hispanics among the 26 students in Athena Shapiro’s second-grade gifted class.

On a recent morning, a line of Ms. Cutler’s students moved from the classroom to the corridor, ahead of the general education class of Linda Crews. A string of mostly white faces and then a line of mostly black and Hispanic ones walked down the hall of a school named for a New York politician who sought to end inequities in education: Alfred E. Smith.

It was 11:25 a.m., and the classes wound their way to the cafeteria, a cavernous room at the school’s western edge. Once there, the children sat with those in their own class, each one at a separate long white table that, for a moment, froze the divisions.

For critics of New York City’s gifted and talented programs, that image crystallizes what they say is a flawed system that reinforces racial separation in the city’s schools and contributes to disparities in achievement.

They contend that gifted admissions standards favor middle-class children, many of them white or Asian, over black and Hispanic children who might have equal promise, and that the programs create castes within schools, one offered an education that is enriched and accelerated, the other getting a bare-bones version of the material. Because they are often embedded within larger schools, the programs bolster a false vision of diversity, these critics say, while reinforcing the negative stereotypes of class and race.

Despite months of repeated requests, the city’s Education Department would not provide racial breakdowns of gifted and talented programs and the schools that house them. But the programs tend to be in wealthier districts whose populations have fewer black and Hispanic children, and far more children qualify for them in affluent districts than in poorer ones.

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"Have a Good Day"

Children's Books

Have a Good Day

‘Polar Bear Morning,’ by Lauren Thompson, and More

From “Polar Bear Morning”

By PAMELA PAUL

A new year, a new day. For very young children, there really isn’t much difference. Each morning seems to bring a whirlwind of emotion and possibility, hope and disappointment. And it takes a good long while to get to bedtime. Three new picture books honor the boundaries, as so many picture books do, of the 24-hour lifetimes of young children.

POLAR BEAR MORNING

By Lauren Thompson

Illustrated by Stephen Savage

32 pp. Scholastic Press. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 5)

CHU’S DAY

By Neil Gaiman

Illustrated by Adam Rex

32 pp. Harper/HarperCollins Publishers. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)

MY FIRST DAY

By Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Illustrated by Steve Jenkins

32 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)

Related

• Times Topic: Children's Books Reviews

Enlarge This Image

From “Chu’s Day”

Enlarge This Image

From “My First Day”

“Polar Bear Morning” is a sequel of sorts to the previous collaboration between Lauren Thompson (“The Forgiveness Garden,” “The Christmas Magic”) and Stephen Savage (“Where’s Walrus?,” “Little Tug”). Their previous effort, “Polar Bear Night,” was a bedtime story about a cub wandering outside at night, observing his sleeping neighbors and a star shower before taking to bed himself. This new book likewise features the pure simplicity of Savage’s near-monochromatic linocut illustrations, beginning with the icy blues of early dawn before bursting into the warmer brights of polar sunshine. And “Polar Bear Morning,” like its predecessor, is a real charmer.

Just as “Night” captivated with its hushed solemnity, so “Morning” captures the excitement of daybreak — the need to “clamber” out of bed, scamper into the “sparkling snow” and gleefully tumble down a little hill. Thompson’s text is a concise approximation of preschool vernacular, though lighted by poetry. The words, which tell a modest story of burgeoning friendship and two bears swept along by childhood exploration, join in buoyant harmony with Savage’s soft lines and gentle forms. The image of the two new friends diving side by side, eyes blissfully closed, as they leap into the polar sea perfectly encapsulates the bliss of the young at play.

In Neil Gaiman’s “Chu’s Day,” a very different bear, this time a panda, begins his day on a foreboding note. “When Chu sneezed, bad things happened,” the first page tells us. Can a popular YouTube video motif inspire a picture book? Quite possibly, though Gaiman doesn’t explicitly identify his source material.

But as soon as Chu and his mother enter a musty, dusty library, we know panda sneezes are in order. The hows and whens and whys provide the substance of this slight tale, which is enriched primarily by the sly humor in Adam Rex’s deeply hued oil paintings. At the Moby Diner, for example, a whale plays short order chef to an octopus, a monkey and a turtle, and a kangaroo carelessly wields a pepper grinder. Uh oh. 

“Are you going to sneeze?” Chu’s father asks. It becomes a refrain. To which Chu replies, “Aah, Aaaah, Aaaaah — no.”

You can bet that when Chu finally does sneeze, it comes at an unexpected and inopportune moment — and shows Gaiman’s keen understanding of a 5-year-old’s comedic sensibility. “Chu’s Day” is the first in a planned series of three about Chu. (Time to Google “panda yawning”?)

Steve Jenkins and Robin Page have already done yawning in one of their many collaborations, “Time to Sleep.” That book and a companion, “Time to Eat,” provide the rough format for the smart, informative and accessible “My First Day,” as the team offers a glimpse into the very first day of newborn animals, whether a sifaka, a capybara or a California sea lion. (As usual, the two venture far from the expected menagerie, though they are careful to include favorites like tigers and penguins.)

Jenkins’s masterly paper collages achieve their usual high standards of zoological accuracy and beauty. The text is shrewdly written in the first-person voice of each baby animal, mingling personality with scientific fact. The baby blue wildebeest notes, “On my first day, I trotted along with my mother. My herd was on the move, and I had to keep up!” The voices give expression to the ideas and emotions of human children while also being true to the animals in question. The barking between a baby sea lion and his mother, for example, assures the baby that “I won’t get lost among the other sea lion pups.”

The analogies with a young child’s physical achievement and independence are clear, and inspiring. “On my first day, I raced to the water,” a baby leatherback turtle boasts. “I landed in a heap,” the baby giraffe admits. “But I wasn’t hurt, and before long I was taking my first steps.”

Children will likewise respond to the warm relationship between parent and offspring. “I clung to her fur as she slept,” a golden snub-nosed monkey says of his large, orange-furred mother. The story ends, sweetly, with a polar bear who practically purrs, “I curled up in a cozy den beneath the snow. I was safe and warm beside my mother.” The full spread of his silhouette nestled against hers is one of pure filial joy. What a fine way to start, or end, the day. 

"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
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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

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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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• Android ^®
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• Android^®
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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.