Strange Machines

In this picture, Bear is wearing his Super Bear outfit (note the underwear as outer wear) and his ‘I didn’t do anything naughty’ look.

This month, he has mastered climbing down stairs (today!) and climbing down chairs and beds. He says Mama and Papa a lot and has 9 teeth (with more coming). He loves clapping, high-fives, and his books (more than toys).

He can flip books without tearing pages and often fascinates himself by flipping my books. Sometimes he finds a picture of himself looking back at him grinning and is very amused.

More recently, he has discovered the joy of cold drinks in packets and cans, and spends time cruising along with them (and other pushable objects) with one hand. He likes people holding him as he tries to walk and loves his cousin Kaitlyn’s bicycle.

Tonight after dinner, Aunty Jo and Uncle Andrew played drums and sang baby karaoke to him as he happily clapped along. A new nick, Little Drummer Boy, was coined.

Every day in the newspapers there are seminars and advice columns on parenting. I cringe whenever some so-called expert claims that this and that is good or bad and wonder how much of it is anecdotal and how much is actually based on fact.

Considering how much bad advice there is out there, it pays to instead:

1. Become an expert on parenting

Read extensively and regularly on studies conducted on children. See what has worked well in the past and what has repeatedly been shown to work (also called peer review).

Learn to understand how researchers conduct their studies and gather their data. The more researchers agree on a standard, the more likely it is that it can be considered fact.

Note that this is different from the idea that since everyone believes it works, it is a fact. Peer review is based on the scientific method.

2. Be an expert on your child

Develop a strong bond with your child. Interact with him often. Understand what makes him tick and what his responses mean. Earn his trust by consistently being there and giving him your full attention. Soon you will now that ‘ehh’ is his name for you and ‘em’ means he is unhappy.

You will also know if certain methods like the no-cry sleep solution can work for him (in Bear’s case it doesn’t), or if co-sleeping makes him sleep better (it sure does for Bear – he wakes up 4x in 2 hours if I am not beside him and twice in 9 hours when I am beside him), for instance.

3. Trust your instincts

All instincts need to be honed with information. On a daily basis we are picking up unconscious cues from the world around us. That is why parents instinctively treat their children the way their parents treated them.

Thus it is essential to be informed of safe parenting methods vs harmful ones like cry it out and spanking which do long-term damage to your child.

Finally, based on the research you have gathered and the knowledge you have of your child, trust your own parenting instincts on how best to tend to your little one.

Today Bear discovered that he could stick his head between the bars on Grandma’s bed and see the other side. He was so tickled he kept giggling and repeating it.

Last night we stayed over at my Mom’s because I had an early interview with Nobel Laureate Dr Richard Roberts. Not used to the new bedtime place, Bear woke after an hour and a half and refused to sleep again till midnight.

He associates the room with play time so it was hard getting him back to bed while he was rolling around, trying to stand, and looking here and there.

He finally woke up for good at 7am when my Mom found him standing above my head clutching the rails gleefully while I held his legs semi-comatose.

The whole thing wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t sick with a bad cold (which may actually turn out to be the flu).

Tonight he was out like a night in our own bed.

New findings on an old argument. Essentially parenting still matters most. They emphasise quality parenting.

Do note that the study has only tracked the children till they are 12 so far. It still cannot tell us how they will be when they are adults.

“Parenting quality significantly predicted all the developmental outcomes and much more strongly than did any of the child-care predictors,” the researchers wrote.

The source of the fuss is the latest installment of a long-running $200 million effort by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Since 1991, a team of researchers has been tracking more than 1,300 children, following them from infancy through various child-care settings (home with mother, home with another relative, home with nanny, or at day care) and into elementary school. In the March/April issue of Child Development, the team asks “Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care?”

To answer that question, the researchers report their findings about the kids’ academic achievement and behavior through sixth grade. The study controls for a host of variables, like socioeconomic status, quality of parenting (annoyingly, this measure involves only mothers), quality of child care, and quality of the elementary-school classroom. It’s all very well-done and careful.

The higher-than-average incidence of bad behavior showed up only among kids who spent three or four years in day care before the age of 4½.

The kids with more reported behavior problems in elementary school were the ones who spent three or four years in day care and whose care was, on average, of lower quality.

“We found that more time in day-care centers correlates to higher problem behavior scores,” (the study’s author, Margaret) Burchinal said. “This raises the question whether it could be the quality within those centers” that accounts for the effect.

Burchinal points out that on average, day care for infants and toddlers is worse than for preschoolers. It’s more expensive because states require more staff for babies. And the littlest kids don’t get much out of being in a group like the older ones do. The youngest thrive on one-on-one attention, and it takes considerable skill and experience to deftly juggle the needs of a bunch of them. So maybe the real lesson here is a reminder: Day care for infants and toddlers is the hardest to do well. And lower-quality care, coupled with three or four years spent at a center, doesn’t appear to serve kids quite as well as other arrangements (though the difference in slight).

Still, the study’s results, properly explained, do not suggest that kids who spent a year or two in day care when they are 3 and 4—or, in my opinion at least, kids who go to excellent day care for longer periods—will talk back to their teachers and throw more than their share of spitballs when they get older. These kids will behave themselves just fine. As long as their parents don’t screw them up.

(Source and full article: The Kids Are Alright on Slate)