Jen Robinson's Book Page

Tips for Parents to Encourage #SummerReading

I wrote this article upon request for my daughter's school website, and am sharing a slightly edited version here. 

Summer Slide is a well-documented phenomenon in which students' academic performance slips over the summer break. One report found that "on average, students’ achievement scores declined over summer vacation by one month’s worth of school-year learning". The good news is that the solution to a Summer Slide in reading scores is simple: get your kids to read over the summer break. 

Of course that's easier said than done. Kids are busy with camps and other activities. They often prefer to spend their free time playing with their friends or poking around on their tablets instead of reading books. And if you try to force them to spend time reading they may well resist you on principle. "It's my summer vacation! I don't HAVE to read and YOU can't make me!". Etc. 

The trick is to make reading enjoyable, so that your kids will choose to do it. Scholastic runs an extensive survey on family reading every two years. This year's Kids and Family Reading Report identified three factors that are common to kids who read frequently for pleasure:

1. Choice over what they read;
2. Access to lots of books; and
3. Reading role models

[See another post I wrote about the KFRR results here.] With those results in mind, here are seven tips for making reading enjoyable for your kids this summer:

1. Let them choose what they want to read. This is the MOST important thing you can do as a parent to encourage reading for pleasure. Do not give in to the temptation to "encourage" your daughter to read books that you like, or books that you think are good for her. Do not visibly cringe when all your son wants to read for the entire summer are Dog Man or Goosebumps books. The important thing is that your children are reading books that they THEY enjoy. Re-reading books or reading books that seem to you to be too easy for them gives them valuable practice. Eventually they will choose to move on to more challenging fare and then they'll enjoy that, too. I think it's fine to show them the Battle of the Books lists or other recommended reading lists, but then step back and let them choose those books if and only if they feel inspired. 
2. Read aloud to them, no matter how old they are. This is one of the things that the kids in the Scholastic survey report that they love most. They love the attention and the closeness. And by reading to them you can read books that are a bit too challenging for them to read on their own, expanding their vocabularies and narrative sense. Reading together is a win on many levels. Even if you are out of the habit, summer is a good time to try again. If you're not comfortable, you could also try listening to audiobooks together. 
3. Let them see you reading. This works best if you read books or magazines in print. When you are on your tablet, they probably assume that you are texting or doing social media. But if they see you curled up on the couch with a book, TV off, they will be more likely to make that choice themselves. 
4. Take them to the library or the bookstore (and again, let them choose). Kids are sometimes fickle. What they want to read today may not be what they want to read tomorrow. Having lots of choices, readily available around your house, will make kids more likely to choose to read. 
5. Keep books in convenient locations in your house. The could be the breakfast table, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, or (as in my house) all of the above. Again, if the books are there, and they are books that your child has chosen (or there are a lot of books for her to choose from), you will increase the chance that your child will decide to read. 
6. Consider giving your kids flashlights or headlamps to make reading in bed more fun.
7. Limit screens, at least some of the time, so that your child has some time to read. Something that has worked well for me is not to allow my daughter (age 9) to use her tablet in the car unless the drive is at least 30 minutes. I keep a bin of books in the car (well, ok, two bins) and change the books out regularly. Most of the time, when we are driving to the orthodontist or softball or whatever, my daughter is reading. Often when she has friends in the car with her, they are all reading. Some of my favorite times are when I can listen to them talk to each other about books, smiling quietly to myself. 

A note on Summer Reading programs. There are many programs that focus on getting kids reading. Most of them give prizes for meeting certain milestones. Our PTO Language Arts Chair found this list of 17 Free Summer Reading Programs. I'm not personally a fan of giving kids extrinsic rewards for reading because some studies have shown that the kids will stop reading once the rewards stop coming. But for kids who are extremely reluctant to read, programs like this might offer the push that you need to get them started. Sometimes all it takes is for a child to find the right book, that one book that hooks him, and then he'll be a reader for life. Or at least for this summer, which is the immediate goal. 

See also this post, which is about Scholastic's findings regarding a decline in kids reading for pleasure at age 9.

Thanks for reading and happy summer. 

The Orchid and the Dandelion: W. Thomas Boyce, M.D.

Book: The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive
Author: W. Thomas Boyce, M.D.
Pages: 304
Age Range: Adult nonfiction, especially relevant for parents and teachers

I found The Orchid and the Dandelion, by W. Thomas Boyce, to be an informative read. The premise of this adult nonfiction title is that there’s a normal distribution of kids in terms of sensitivity / reactivity to their environment. Boyce, a longtime researcher and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, classifies the 20% who are most reactive as orchids and the rest as dandelions. His research, and that of others, suggests that the dandelions are relatively impervious to things that happen to them. They can thrive good or bad situations. They are resilient. They bounce back. The orchids on the other hand, can do extremely well when nurtured properly. They are “unusually vital, creative, and successful within supportive, nurturing environments.” But in the presence of adversity, they tend to do poorly. They get sick more often (especially respiratory illnesses) and can veer towards mental illness, anxiety, addiction, and other negative behaviors.

It’s not completely clear what causes orchids, but Boyce thinks there’s a strong genetic component and that it was selected for in evolution. The orchids were early warning systems when things were bad, and then high-achievers when things were stable, and both aspects were thus beneficial. He also thinks that there’s a strong epigenetic component – that how people genes end up expressing as orchids is affected by their environments, from natal to childhood. Boyce identifies the orchids primarily by testing kids’ stress responses (fight-or-flight and cortisol responses to challenges).

I found this book fascinating. It’s a challenging read, covering a lot of science, and definitely requires a high level of concentration from the reader. Boyce helps make it more accessible, however, by sharing his personal story of his orchid sister who failed to thrive and eventually committed suicide. He also shares lots of examples of actual (names changed) kids who he has treated, studied, or known over the years. Finally, he includes incisive little biographies of the people he works with over the years that humanize what could have been a dry recounting of research. Here's one example: “Growing up, he had been a rebellious, recalcitrant, and generally annoying adolescent, forever in trouble by virtue of his impulsivity and an intellect that well outstripped his school’s and family’s capacities for containing and challenging it.” (Page 108 of the ARC)

I did have a couple of issues with the book:

1. Boyce says that 15-20% of kids have most of the health problems found within a population of children over time (and account for the majority of health care dollars spent). He also says that 20% of the population are orchids. Then he says that some of the orchids thrive and have unusually good health. So is it just coincidence that for each orchid that does thrive there’s a dandelion who for whatever reason does not, such that the percentages match up? This is not unreasonable, but I felt that this could have been addressed more directly. Perhaps it was, and I missed it.
2. He’s somewhat absolute throughout much of the book about the orchid children vs. the dandelion children. However, this whole classification is based on a normal distribution of behavior. I kept thinking: wouldn’t it be more a spectrum, with some kids tending more towards orchids and some tending towards dandelions? He does state this about the spectrum clearly late in the book, and I get that he’s trying to make an already complex story more comprehensible, but as a person who understand variability, this bothered me as I was reading.

Those issues aside, I did find the book engaging thought-provoking. It made me think about my own development and my daughter’s, and about things that might help some of the people around me. I highlighted many passages and learned a variety of things. Here are a few of my (many) notes:

• When Boyce started studying the correlation between adversity and propensity toward childhood illness, he found that while childhood adversity was predictive, the associations were not nearly as strong as expected. This is the data from which he and others started to see that for some kids adversity wasn’t highly predictive of illness, but for other kids it was. (Chapter 2, page 29, ARC)
• Studies that looked at kids’ stress reactivity, social environments, and susceptibility to respiratory illness followed, resulting in the graph in Chapter 3 (page 47 of the ARC) that is the heart of the book. The kids identified as dandelions show only a slight increase in their respiratory illness rates as the stress in their social environments increases. The kids identified as orchids show much lower illness rates in low stress environments, but much higher illness rates in high stress environments (a line with a much steeper slope). The researchers’ conclusion/epiphany was that the orchid children “were more open, more permeable, more tender to the powerful influences, both bad and good, of the context in which they were living and growing.” (Page 48, ARC)
• Chapter 7 is about “The Kindness and Cruelty of Children” and how dominance structures in preschool and later classrooms can disproportionately affect the orchid children, who may end up bullied or isolated. He talks about “the unsung valor of the kindergarten teacher”, saying “Preschool and kindergarten teachers earn the very smallest paychecks of those who staff our national system of education, and yet they are the educators most likely to profoundly shape young minds and lives, during the most neurobiologically formative period of early learning.” (Page 151, ARC)
• Chapter 8 is about what you can do as a parent to help orchid children, distilled from his years of researching and treating orchid children, and watching his sister, his orchid daughter, and others. Here's a summary quote about these recommendations, which are well worth a look in full: “These then are the potent secrets of raising, teaching, or shepherding a happy and healthy, if delicate, orchid boy or girl: the power of sameness and routine, the gifts of attentiveness and love, the celebration of human differences, the affirmation of a true and genuine self, the balance between protection and emboldening challenge, and the beneficence of play.” (Page 172, end of Chapter 8, ARC)
• In Chapter 10 he does get to the nature of the spectrum of orchid to dandelion. After describing on of his own childhood experiences he says: “Looking back on it now, it is one last reminder of an essential point: orchids and dandelions aren’t a binary division cutting humanity into two categories. The two flowers are powerful metaphors, or a vivid shorthand, for what is actually a spectrum.” (Page 220, ARC) I agree with this, but think he could have made the point a bit clearer earlier.
• In the Conclusion, Boyce gets into what he thinks we should be doing as a society to protect orchid children. Using an analogy to legal protections for lead (which especially help certain kids who are the most sensitive to lead poisoning), he posits that making the social improvements that would help orchid kids would also help all kids. Even more compelling, he notes, "this same subgroup of orchid kids, most sensitive to the developmental and health effects of poverty, violence, and despair, are the same group that is most likely to dramatically benefit from exposure to supportive, nurturant, and encouraging social contexts." (Page 232, ARC, Conclusion)

If any of these tidbits catch your eye, then you should give The Orchid and the Dandelion, released last week, a look. It does take some time and mental focus to read it all the way through, but I think you'll find this investment worthwhile. I know I did. I learned a lot. Recommended!

Publisher:  Knopf
Publication Date: January 29, 2019 
Source of Book: Advance review copy from the publisher. Please note that quotes are from the ARC, and may differ from the final printed book, particularly in regards to page numbers. 

© 2019 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through affiliate links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

What Has Worked for Us in Reducing #ScreenTime

I cannot over-emphasize how effective it has been to require my daughter to do things before she can have access to screen time. Right now as I write it is Saturday morning. We have a free day ahead of us and are taking it easy. She asked, for the first time in ages, to have her 30 minutes of iPad time. (My fault: I brought up screens in the first place.) I said ok, after she gets dressed and brushes her teeth and hair (a policy that I established back over the summer). And so … 45 minutes later she is up in her room re-reading the newest Dork Diaries book, still in her pajamas with messy hair and unbrushed teeth, no screen in sight. [Update: she did eventually get the screen time, but she read the entire book first, so I still think it was a win.]

Since putting this policy in place, we've cut her iPad time almost to nothing. This despite the fact that the things I require her to do are things that she's going to have to do eventually anyway. It's a miracle of human motivation, at least in our case. In place of that screen time she is reading, writing, drawing, doing crafts, and building elaborate structures out of MagnaTiles. Honestly, I consider this one of my greatest ever parenting wins, second only to the fact that she now cheers enthusiastically for the Red Sox and is starting to understand the game. 

Also on the subject of screen time, I have taken my daughter's recommendation / request that I read more print books to heart. I've been reading more in print and less on my Kindle (though not none). This makes every book acquisition decision more complex, as I have to decide on format (print, kindle, library, audio). But I find the extra effort worthwhile. I'm validating her request as well as more visually demonstrating reading to my daughter. And there's the potential benefit that I'm reading more deeply myself. [See this article by Maryanne Wolf for more detail, and/or check out her book Reader, Come Home, which Mary Ann Scheuer recommends].

The more I read on this topic [see iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us and Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, for example, as well as this recent NY Times piece by Nellie Bowles], the more I think that keeping my daughter's screen time down is important and likely to pay long term dividends. She reads more. She's less irritable. My guess is that she'll have better concentration in the long term. I know it will be harder when she's old enough for social media and when she has more homework that has to be done on a computer.

But for now, just requiring her to take care of routine business before getting on the device is working like a charm. I highly recommend giving this a try!

© 2018 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. Links may be affiliate links, providing me with a small commission on purchases. 

How to be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute: KJ Dell'Antonia

Book: How to be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute
Author: KJ Dell'Antonia
Pages: 320
Age Range: Adult Nonfiction (Parenting)

I rarely review books for adults on this blog, but KJ Dell'Antonia's new parenting book How to be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute inspired me to say a few words. I've read and enjoyed a number of Dell'Antonia's articles over the years, and so was interested to hear her voice in book form. I've also been on something of a personal quest to be happier in my own parenting, so this book had the potential to be a good fit.

I was not disappointed. It seems that Dell'Antonia, working (journalist) mother of four children, has been on a similar quest for quite a while. She read extensively on parenting, talked to a variety of parents and other experts, and conducted a survey. Her emphasis for the book is on changes that parents can make to their parenting styles, hacks of various sorts, that will make the parent happier. And happier parents will, she believes (as do I) ultimately lead to happier kids. 

Dell'Antonia cites a number of books that I had already read and enjoyed, like How to Raise and Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haimes, It's OK Not to Share by Heather Shumaker, and The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey. I felt early on in the book that KJ and I we were philosophically aligned, and I marked a number of other books for future reads. I also got a kick out of the fact that two of the parents she cited were people that I knew (Marjorie Ingall and Jason Kotecki), at least in the sense of having met them in person and shared a meal. 

Anyway, How to Be a Happier Parent consists of chapters dedicated to each of nine parenting areas that Dell'Antonia and the people she talked with have found to particular sources of unhappiness or stress for parents. She starts with getting everyone out of the house in the morning and progresses through things like enforcing chores, mediating between siblings, and monitoring homework.

Her basic approach is guided by a set of ten mantras for happier parents that she explains early in the book and then repeatedly refers back to. For instance: "What you want now isn't always what you want later" (you have to take the long view when doing things like enforcing chores, even when being the fun, easy parent is more appealing in the short run). I especially liked "You do you", as in, you don't have to be the Pinterest-perfect parent, your family can do what your family likes.

I highlighted passages in basically every chapter (except for the one on siblings, which I skipped because my daughter doesn't have siblings). In truth, a lot of the recommendations in the book consist of things that I already believe, like staying as far out of your children's homework assignments as you can and using natural consequences to teach them to pack their backpacks properly (by refusing to bring something to them later). But there's a difference between believing philosophically in doing something and actually doing it. And for me, at least, there's value in repetition and the validation of hearing advice that you in your heart want to hear. (Like "you do you.")

The piece of advice that stood out the most for me, and that I feel like could actually change how I do things, was regarding discipline. The general idea is to treat discipline not so much as enforcement but as teaching kids how to enact certain behaviors. And to remind yourself that it takes kids a long (long, long, long) time to learn things sometimes, so you just have to keep repeating yourself over and over again. You should try to do this without beating yourself up over having failed to get this across in the previous 100 times, which will help in staying calm. Here's a section of the text on this that I highlighted:

"“but you’re not here just to stop him in the moment.” You’re here, she says, to teach your child to make the right choices for himself, so offer that option first, even if it seems as if he should know better by now. Some things take a lot of saying...

That whole sequence of connecting, teaching, and then, if necessary, ending a behavior is one you will repeat again and again, especially with a younger child, so make your words positive ones, even if the behavior is anything but. “If I’m going to say it a hundred times,” says Faber, “I figure it might as well be something I want my child to learn.”...

That kind of repetition is where a lot of us fall down. Consistency is hard, and it’s especially difficult when we’ve become so accustomed to an on-demand world...

When we accept discipline as a long-term teaching process, it gets easier. Instead of thinking, I’ve asked him hundreds of times to do this and he still doesn’t do it, parents who are happier in their disciplinary role think something more along the lines of I’ve asked him a hundred times and I’ll ask him a hundred more and that’s how we get there." (Chapter 7)

I'm going to try to remember this. I think it will help. And really, that's why I read parenting and other self-help type books. I'm looking for those ideas that resonate with my own personal philosophy and that might, if implemented, help in some way. 

So, even as someone who has read a lot of books on related topics, I found How to be a Happier Parent useful. This book is not for the mother who is looking for validation in her quest to get her child into Stanford at all costs, or for the father trying figure out how to push his lazy child to practice more so that he can get that football scholarship. (Though these parents could learn a lot if they did read it.) But if you are a busy parent and you are looking for some tips on taking a deep breath, slowing things down, taking off some of the pressure and enjoying your family more, this is the book for you. Highly recommended! 

Publisher: Avery  
Publication Date: August 21, 2018
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher

© 2018 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through affiliate links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

Some Thoughts on Limiting Screen Time

For the summer, my husband, daughter and I agreed on a policy of no more than 30 minutes per day of screen time for her (with long plane trips an exception). Right as school let out, I added a modifier to that. I said that the screen time could only happen after she had tidied her room and playroom, put away any clean laundry, eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, and brushed her teeth. Because my daughter is one who prefers to kick around in her PJs all day, eating a super late breakfast, this modifier has initiated some whining. BUT it's already been hugely successful in getting her to diversify her activities.

Yesterday she:

• Spent an hour making an elaborate birthday card for a friend.
• Set up a Lego station in the front hall.
• Started a new project on her Loopdeloom.
• Dressed her new (hand-me-down) American Girl doll in a cute softball outfit.
• Read several short graphic novels.
• Went to the library with me to check out 26 books.

All of this took place before her 30 minutes of device time, which ended up happening late in the afternoon.

Yes, the whole process ended up cutting into my newspaper reading and exercise time a bit. And yes, the house is much, much messier now than it would have been if I had let her start on her tablet the minute she got up and stay on it for 3 hours (and has certainly happened in the recent past). But she is DOING things instead of passively WATCHING things, which is a clear improvement overall. 

Oh, and this morning she slept later than she has all school year. She was getting up early on the weekends out of eagerness to get to the device. Knowing that she won't get to it right away, she stays in bed longer, which is surely a good thing.

So, here is my advice, for what it's worth, if you want your child to spend more time reading or playing or doing crafts:

• Set a hard limit on device time / screen time (at least at home, and/or for when the child is alone. Family movies and things can be additional).
• Add some constraints, things that have to be accomplished BEFORE the screen time takes place. If these are things that she will do anything to put off, so much the better.
• Communicate the policies clearly to your child, explaining your reasons. My daughter and I had a discussion about how much better it is for her to spend her time reading, playing, etc. than tapping away on a screen. We talked about how when she doesn't spend time online she is less cranky. Because she had recently spent 2+ weeks without ANY screen time (as a consequence of a misbehavior), she knew what I was talking about, even if she didn't like it. 

The idea here is to convey, if you can, that you are setting the limits for the child's benefit, not your own. And this is the truth. I hate the mess around the house that results from more free play. I miss the quiet time to exercise without being interrupted while she's on her tablet. But in the big picture, the activities that she's choosing to do instead of the device time are clearly better for her development. And I can use the requirement to clean up the mess as a way to put off her device time again today. 

© 2018 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

My Daughter's Plan for How She Wants to Spend Her Summer Vacation

Last summer I wrote about my daughter's experience with play-based vs. activity based summer camp/childcare. She roundly rejected the themed camps that I signed her up for for two weeks (which were also more logistically difficult and expensive for me) in favor of going to her usual childcare facility, which is close to our home and both kid-driven and play-based. This summer she has already made it clear to me that she wants no other camps, just to go to the local place every day. Far be it from me to argue. 

She has also asked to stop all other activities (except maybe piano, she's on the fence there), at least during the week, so that she can fully dedicate herself to playing. Last summer there were a number of times when I arrived to pick her up for karate, only to find her in the middle of planning a wedding or setting up a restaurant. She is preemptively telling me that these interruptions are not going to be tolerated. 

When I think of summer vacations when I was a kid, all I did was play or read all day (that's how I remember it, anyway). I remember endless games of Monopoly with my best friend, Carol; playing with Barbies; reading up in a tree; and riding my bike around the neighborhood. I remember swimming. Oh, there was an occasional day camp or swim lesson, and sometimes Carol's mom (who had no younger kids to watch) took us on outings. My family went on vacations here and there, and I must have spent time watching my siblings. But mostly, as I remember it now, summers were about free play.

I can't give that free range summer experience to my daughter. There are no kids her age on our street. I have to be able to work (though I am lucky enough to work from home). I don't want want her on her tablet all day (or to fight with her about time on said tablet all day). She needs to go somewhere. Our childcare place allows me to give her the closest thing I can to that "play all day" summer. It's what she wants, and that is what I plan to do. I feel very fortunate to have this as an option. Of course I recognize that this is not the solution that would work for all kids and families. 

I'm sharing this not because I think you all need to know where my child will be over the summer. But I think it's telling that my daughter, who just turned eight, is expressing this preference. She has a bunch of activities that ebb and flow over the course of the school year, and although she enjoys them, she is now, in April, tired. She's asking for a rest. She's asking to do crafts and play imagination-based games with other kids all day. Isn't she entitled to that?

It's so, so easy to over-schedule our kids. It's great that they have options, and I know that sports and other activities are good for them and enrich them in various ways. But I wonder how many kids are out there like my daughter who just want a break. Who just want to play. I hope with all my heart that the ones who need that will get it. Thanks for listening. 

© 2018 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure: Kaye Newton

Book: How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure
Author: Kaye Newton
Pages: 170
Age Range: Adult Nonfiction

How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure is a well-researched, user-friendly guide for parents on this specific topic. Author Kaye Newton isn't a teacher or reading expert - she's a parent who struggled with her own children's falling off of reading during adolescence, and set out to look for solutions. While there's not a lot in the book that was new to me, because I read a lot in this area, I think that Newton did a nice job of distilling recommendations from sources like Jim Trelease, Donalyn Miller, Penny Kittle, and others. She also has a nice set of book recommendations that are designed to "hook" kids, with titles grouped by age range and category (history, nonfiction, humor, etc.). The books she recommends include many of what I would consider the "new classics" as well as some traditional classics, with a reasonable (though not extensive) representation of diverse titles. 

I agreed with and applauded most of Newton's recommendations throughout the book. She strongly supports giving kids choice in what they read, and she doesn't get hung up on reading levels or literary quality. She's a proponent of anything that involves long-form reading, vs. brief snippets on texts and Facebook, including fiction and nonfiction, magazines and audiobooks. She strikes me as not completely sure about graphic novels, but she goes with the research and agrees that they are "real reading" and can be used to hook readers. She's solid on choice and putting the pleasure in pleasure reading. 

I wasn't completely on board with some specific recommendations that she makes for boys and reading because I feel philosophically that boys should be encouraged to read books with female protagonists. But I think that the general audience of parents who are trying to encourage reluctant readers will find the specific recommendations helpful. Similarly, I'm not a fan of giving kids rewards for reading. And to be fair, neither is Newton, but she does outline cases where she thinks they can help, for particularly resistant readers. But those are my only, minor, quibbles.

I found myself highlighting many passages as I read through How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure. Newton starts by telling parents why they should encourage their kids to read for pleasure, with a nice section on the benefits for teens and preteens (stress reduction, improved concentration, increased empathy, etc.). She views encouraging reading as a parent's job, and she doesn't let parents off the hook in terms of modeling reading, though she's generous with her definitions. For example, one suggestion to increase summer reading is to designate a time that the whole family reads, but that reading could include articles for work, the newspaper, or other choices.

Newton is empathetic to the difficulties that parents can face in striving for more reading time (it's hard to get kids to put down their screens), but stays positive about the reasons to do so. She takes on various questions, like whether it's ok for kids to re-read (yes), whether it's ok to read on an e-reader, what to do about kids who are reading above their grade level, how to help kids with learning disabilities, and so on. She urges parents to surround their kids with reading material, whether from the library or other sources, and provides  suggestions for making reading "the most interesting and accessible activity in the room." 

As my daughter is not yet an adolescent (thank goodness), and is at this point still an avid reader (thank goodness), there were parts of this book that were not as relevant for me. I won't be setting up book clubs any time soon, for instance. But I still enjoyed reading this book, because I agreed with so much of what Kaye Newton had to say. I did pick up a few new ideas, too. How to Get Your Screen-Loving Kids to Read Books for Pleasure is a fairly quick read (with lots of lists and bullets). I think that any parent seeking to engage a reluctant teen or preteen reader could find something useful to try. It's also good just for refreshing one's general intent to raise readers (and be a reader). All in all, I definitely recommend giving this book a look! 

Publisher:  Linland Press
Publication Date: January 10, 2018
Source of Book: Review copy from the author

© 2018 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through affiliate links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).

Two Points on iGen and the Critical Importance of Kids Reading for Pleasure

Recently I read the book iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us by Jean Twenge. It's about the generation of kids born between roughly 1995 and 2010, a generation Twenge dubs iGen, is different from previous generations. Twenge relies on analysis of several surveys of high school kids and young adults that have been asking the same questions for many years, supplemented by interviews with junior high, high school and college kids. I was interested in this book in part because my daughter falls right at the tail of the time window, and also because my company has been looking to hire students graduating from college (the other end of the iGen window). 

There are a lot of interesting ideas and conclusions in the book, and I do recommend that people give it a look. The take home message for me is that I want to put off getting my daughter a smartphone for as long as possible, while encouraging her to continue participating in sports and spending time in person with other kids. Because these things are all associated with more positive outcomes. 

But what I want to talk about specifically today is two points that the book makes regarding reading for pleasure. In Chapter 2, there's a section of the book titled "Are Books Dead?" Sadly, Twenge's conclusion is that reading for pleasure, while not dead, is in decline among today's kids. She notes that:

"In the late 1970's, the clear majority of teens read a book or a magazine nearly every day, but by 2015, only 16% did. In other words, three times as many Boomers as iGen’ers read a book or magazine every day. Because the survey question was written in the 1970s, before e-readers existed, it does not specify the format of the book or magazine, so Millennials or iGen’ers who read on a Kindle or iPad would still be included... 

By 2015, one out of three high school seniors admitted they had not read any books for pleasure in the past year, three times as many as in 1976. Even college students entering four-year universities, the young people presumably most likely to read books, are reading less (see Figure 2.4)...

This huge decline flatly contradicts a 2014 Pew Research Center study cheered by many in publishing, which found that 16-to 29-year-olds were more likely to read books than older people. Why the difference? The Pew study included books read for school assignments, which younger people are of course more likely to have. Thus it committed the classic mistake of a one-time study: confusing age and generation. In the data here, where everyone is the same age, iGen teens are much less likely to read books than their Millennial, GenX, and Boomer predecessors."

There's a graph. Twenge shows similar results for reading magazines and newspapers. She posits (after looking at data showing that teens are not spending more time on homework or other extracurricular activities) that this decline is due to teens spending so much time on smartphones that reading time is basically squeezed out. She also shows that this decline in time spent reading coincides with a decline in SAT scores, especially in writing and critical reading (though of course it is impossible to directly claim causation). She expresses concern that as today's teens head into college, reading long textbooks will be extremely difficult for them, and suggests changes that may be necessary to accommodate the iGen'ers. 

So that's point 1: Teens today are reading less, at least in part because they are spending a lot of time on smartphones.

For the second point that I'm interested in sharing, we turn to Chapter 4 of iGen: Insecure: The New Mental Health Crisis. In this chapter, Twenge shares a range of demoralizing statistics about how today's teens are more emotionally fragile, more lonely, and more prone to depression and suicide. She looks at a variety of survey data and attempts to discern causes, applying a two-part test to possible causes: "(1) it must be correlated with mental health issues or unhappiness and (2) it must have changed at the same time and in the correct direction." She finds: 

"Time spent doing homework fails both tests; it’s not linked to depression, and it didn’t change much over that time period. TV watching is linked to depression, but teens watch less TV now than they used to, so it fails test number two. Time spent on exercise and sports is linked to less depression, but it didn’t change much since 2012, so they fail test number two, too.

Only three activities definitively pass both tests. First, new-media screen time (such as electronic devices and social media) is linked to mental health issues and/ or unhappiness, and it rose at the same time. Second and third, in-person social interaction and print media are linked to less unhappiness and less depression, and both have declined at the same time as mental health has deteriorated.

A plausible theory includes three possible causes: (1) more screen time has led directly to more unhappiness and depression, (2) more screen time has led to less in-person social interaction, which then led to unhappiness and depression, and (3) more screen time has led to less print media use, leading to unhappiness and depression. In the end, all of the mechanisms come back to new-media screen time in one way or another. By all accounts, it is the worm at the core of the apple."

You'll have to read the book for the full details of which studies Twenge is referencing and how she comes to these conclusions. But what particularly struck me (as will not surprise regular readers) is that reading print media, like participating in sports and spending time with friends, was associated with positive mental health outcomes. So that's point 2. 

So here's what we have: teens are spending less time reading for pleasure, and this decline is associated with negative mental health outcomes. What this says to me is that encouraging kids to enjoy reading is even more important than I already thought. Reading for pleasure has so many benefits: improved vocabulary, increased empathy, and improved math skills, to name a few. And now, it seems, it may also be tied to mental health and happiness. 

To all parents reading this, I implore you: put as much focus as you can on making sure that your kids ENJOY reading. Don't worry about their reading level, or how many graphic novels they read, or whether or not they make spelling errors when they write. If you help them to ENJOY reading, they will eventually read, and many good things will follow. You'll be helping them academically in the long run. You'll be giving them hours of pleasure in the short run. And you'll be doing something that appears to protect against ills like anxiety and depression. If that's not worth doing, I don't know what is. 

© 2017 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook.

A Tiny Parenting Win re: Reading

The other day my daughter was on her device for the duration of a 1 1/2 hour drive home from Monterey. When she got home, she wanted to keep using the device, particularly because I had agreed to let her download a new app. When my husband and I said no, that she had reached her limit for the day and then some, she was, shall we say, none too happy. She proceeded to mope about, with much whining, complaining, etc. My husband and I ignored this as best we could, and left her alone. 

Ten minutes later I popped back into the kitchen and spotted her sitting on the couch in the family room, reading a Magic Treehouse book. I immediately slipped away again, thinking: "Now there is a win for parenting." She can't comfortably read the Magic Treehouse books on her own - there are too many words that she needs help with - and she only ended up reading a couple of pages. But still -- when her device was taken away, after a relatively short period of sulking, she turned to a book.

I think that if a book that was more at her reading level had happened to be handy at that moment, she probably would have continued reading longer. As it was, she ended up going into the playroom and writing me, as the fictional Emily, a note about how she would not be able to attend my upcoming birthday party because she, as the fictional Sara, had a science camp reunion that day. There is no Emily. Her name is not Sara. She's never attended science camp. I do not know where these things come from. But I did send a response.

What I do know is that if my daughter had been on her device, she would not have been trying to read a Magic Treehouse book, nor would she have been practicing writing and storytelling. And so, a small win for parenting. 

None of this is to say that I will never give her device time, or that there aren't educational benefits to some of the things she does on her tablet. But this small incident still reinforced to me the upside of setting limits on screen time. Even if one has to endure some sulking. 

© 2016 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

My Ninja Child: Or, Why Kids Should Pursue the Activities that Bring them Joy

I always have my eyes open for articles and posts about play and joy for kids. So I naturally read and shared a recent Washington Post article by Lena Aberdeen Derhally entitle "Kids don't know how to play on their own anymore. Here are four ways to change that."

The whole article is well worth a read. The author begins with why parents should care about getting their kids to play more and then gets into her specific suggestions. Here is the first one:

"Encourage your child’s unique strengths: Everyone has something they enjoy and usually we are pretty good at doing the things we enjoy. If your child truly enjoys an activity, encourage him to develop it. If the child loses interest in the activity and doesn’t want to do it anymore, listen to him. Forcing him to do something that is no longer enjoyable can hurt him in the long run and take the joy out of the activity. The purpose of hobbies and activities is enjoyment."

When I first read this paragraph, I have to confess that I thought it was rather obvious. I've been reading a lot of parenting books and books about the importance of play, and this of course made sense to me. But then I thought about the first sentence of that paragraph again: Everyone has something they enjoy and usually we are pretty good at doing the things we enjoy. This has always been my approach in terms of getting kids interested in books and reading - you have to help them to enjoy it, or they won't do it. 

But then I realized how much this outlook applies to my daughter's experience with karate lessons, and how very much she's been getting out of them. The other day our family met a couple of my husband's colleagues for lunch. My daughter was seated next to a man she knows fairly well (the father of two daughters himself), and she spent the entire lunchtime telling him all about her experiences and accomplishments with karate.

She was reciting exactly how many and which badges she has received ("teamwork", "respect", etc.) and sharing her belt level. She was talking about when her graduation ceremony would be to the next level, and relating with much pride her experience in breaking a board with her hand. She was just brimming over - so proud and so excited to talk about this passionate interest of hers with an adult who would listen attentively (bless him!). 

Of course this enthusiasm shows up at other times, not just at this lunch. She had a ninja-themed birthday party (hence the broken board). She runs around the house in a ninja mask, selects ninja-themed picture books, and was SO excited when for sharing at school she had to do or bring something that started with "K". She was beside herself when I bought her a dress with hidden pink ninjas on it (from Princess Awesome, a new discovery - see the fabric to the left). She used her own money to buy Kung Fu Panda 3. I think you get the idea.

A couple of my friends, as well as my daughter's karate instructor, have commented on how much her confidence has increased since she started doing karate. Her karate studio (Vision Martial Arts in San Jose) is fabulous. They focus not just on karate, but on nurturing teamwork, self-reliance, and other core values. We are grateful to the friends who recommended that we give karate a try. 

But I think that my husband and I deserve some credit, too. We listened when she said that she wanted to give karate a try. We supported her sticking with karate vs. swim team this summer, even though most of her friends were doing the latter. We arranged the ninja-themed birthday party. My husband practices with her. I make sure her uniform is clean. In general, we have prioritized the karate, because it's clear that it is working for her. And the dividends from the decision have been significant. 

If and when her interests change, we'll respect that, too, of course. And it's not that she doesn't have other interests now. I also understand that karate isn't for everyone, and that parents will have to experiment to find the right thing for each kid at each stage of development. My point is that if your child develops a passionate interest, it's worth going out of your way to let her pursue it. You never know which activities are going to be the ones that make your child sparkle. But it's the sparkle that matters. Find it. Follow it. That's what makes kids shine. 

© 2016 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

The Power of Spending Your Own Money

My daughter and I had an entertaining day recently, with an experience that I thought was both educational and empowering for her. It started out when she was looking through her Girl Scout Daisy handbook. [Have I mentioned that she ADORES Girl Scout Daisies? It is true.] She found an exercise that her troop had not gotten to this year, in which participants are supposed to list something that they want, and figure out how long it will take to save for this item.

Her first item was a fish, with tank, which is going to require some time for saving. But her second item was three packets of seeds (flower or vegetable). I told her that this would likely only cost $7 to $10. She ran upstairs to check her "spend" box (which still contained some leftover birthday money), and came down brandishing a $20 bill. She wanted to know if we could go seed-shopping immediately. We were somewhat at loose ends, with my husband away, so I said "Sure."

Here's how she spent her $20. First she spent just under $10 for three packets of seeds. Then she bought herself an ice cream cone from the nearby Baskin Robbins, at a cost of ~$3.25. Then she decided that she wanted to buy small gifts for the friends she was going to see later in the day. She picked out three items from the dollar bins near the front of the nearby Target (one was for herself), at a cost of $5.46 with tax. She had about $1.50 left over.

Leaving the hardware store, she remarked: "This was already a good day, but now it's a GREAT day." 

At all three stores, she paid with her own money, with much pride (though I did hold on to the change in between). As made sense, I encouraged her to do the required math. The three Target items cost $1, $1, and $3, so getting to $5 was easy, though she's not quite ready to compute San Jose's 8.75% sales tax in her head. When she handed over $5.50 at Target, I had her figure out what her change would be. I rounded the prices of the three seed packets and had add those numbers together. But I didn't push it too hard. I wanted our time together to be fun. 

But this whole experience highlighted to me why it's important for kids, once they are old enough, to have some small amount of money of their own. My daughter was empowered by the whole process of deciding what she wanted to buy, figuring out  how much things were going to cost and what she could afford, and physically being the one to pay the sales clerks. The day would not have had nearly the same feel had I just been buying her things. In fact, at one point, I offered to buy some cookies to take over to her friends' house. She said: "Mom, they're MY friends. I should buy the presents, not you." What parent could argue with that? 

We are currently deferring her allowance for the next few months, to save up for that fish tank. I'll keep you all posted. 

© 2016 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

Literacy Milestone: Life Imitating Art with Safety Tips

The other day I stood very briefly on my (wheeled) office chair to reach the inkjet printer refills from the cabinet above my desk. My daughter caught me and chastised me for doing something unsafe. Then she left the room giggling. A few minutes later she came back and taped the following sign to the wall near my desk (where I can't miss it):

I believe that she did have some spelling help from her babysitter. She later added a little checkmark to the upper left-hand corner, to mark the one incident of my standing on the chair. She told me that if I had two more incidents, I would lose access to my wheeled office chair. This actually does not seem unreasonable. She added a couple of other safety tips over the course of the afternoon (thankfully not in response to actual safety violations):

and

These safety tips were, of course, inspired by the delightful, Caldecott-winning picture book Officer Buckle and Gloria, by Peggy Rathmann. I'm sure that there will be more. But what I loved about this incident was the way my daughter took immediate action, and put her thoughts to paper. The fact that she was bringing a beloved book to life was certainly a bonus, though.  

Clearly I will have to be more careful in the future. Office Buckle, Gloria, and my six-year-old are all counting on me. 

© 2016 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook.