Seeing the World Through a Child's Eyes

The things that fascinate adults may not impress children at all and vice versa. In my latest Home News Tribune column I discuss this topic.

You can try to impress young children by showing them the wonders of the world, but it might not be a good investment of your time. What you think will leave them awestruck doesn't, and the seemingly minor details of life will amaze them. So don't try to predict what will fascinate them. Instead, just observe, listen, and learn.

An article that sparked my interest in this topic appeared in The New York Times: "Test Subjects Who Call the Scientist Mom or Dad." In it, Pam Belluck describes scientists who use their children as research subjects. Studying their own children allows researchers a more in-depth investigation. Their children make reliable participants and are willing subjects in an era of scarce research funding.

One MIT professor embedded 11 video cameras and 14 microphones in ceilings throughout his house; he recorded 70 percent of his son's waking hours for his first three years. He amassed 250,000 hours of tape for a language development study that he called "The Human Speechnome Project," according to Belluck.

Similarly (and don't tell my daughter and son-in-law) I am constantly studying my toddler grandson's every move and word, but without cameras and microphones. I cherish the opportunity to watch his growth and development up close and in real time. I soak up every detail of what he sees, hears, touches, and interacts with. The phone rings and he says, "Uh-oh," which is an interesting reaction. He's fascinated by a daddy long-legs bug and pursues it with no fear whatsoever. I was yelling, "Yuckee bug ? don't touch!" and he continues on his mission to investigate how something so small can move so fast on its own.

He could say "up" or "outside" to me, since he regularly uses these words, but sometimes he'll simply choose to walk over and grab my finger, start pulling, and take me exactly where he wants us to go. Dare I attempt to guess what he's thinking, or what he finds interesting? Not a chance.

Recently, when my grandson was visiting our home, there was a backhoe on our block excavating a basement for a new house. I came home from work, ran inside, grabbed my grandson and his jacket, and hurried down the block to watch the backhoe with him. The machine operator saw us, waved, and beeped his horn. In my mind, I couldn't imagine anything more exciting for a little child to experience. That's when my grandson turned, pointed and screamed "Ball!" He was thrilled to point out to me that there was a basketball sitting nearby on another neighbor's lawn. That which I figured would mesmerize him, clearly did not.

Do adults know what impresses young children? Try asking our "father-in-chief" of the United States. While appearing on the "Tonight" show several months ago, President Barack Obama described how impressive the ride is in Marine One. The helicopter lifted off the White House lawn and headed for Camp David. Below, symbols of our nation's history were in full view.

Soaring higher, they flew over the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument. Quite an impressive sight, don't you agree? Sasha Obama, while scanning the amenities of the presidential helicopter, was oblivious to the magnificent view, and asked her Dad, "Can I have one of those Starburst candies in the jar?" She was appreciating Marine One on her own childlike level and her father was intuitive enough to understand that.

This column is dedicated to our grandson on his second birthday.
Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his website http://www.familythinking.com/

Too Much Sunscreen; Too Much Paranoid Parenting

Summertime Week post 5 of 5

In see-saw parenting, moms and dads go from one extreme to the other. The sun is evil and constant use of high SPF sunscreen has resulted in: most American youngsters aren't getting enough vitamin D, and that deficiency is associated with an increased incidence of risk factors for cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke, two new studies find according to Ed Edelson in U.S. News and World Report.

One study, by Dr. Michal Melamed, found that 9 percent of young Americans -- 7.6 million -- were vitamin D-deficient, with blood levels under 15 nanograms per milliliter, and that 61 percent -- 50.8 million -- were vitamin D-insufficient, with levels between 15 nanograms and 29 nanograms per milliliter.

Adequate vitamin D intake can be achieved with 15 minutes a day of exposure to sunlight or consuming fortified milk, bread and other wheat products, among other foods. "Parents should focus on modifiable risk factors," Melamed said. "Children should not always be on the computer or watching television. They can drink more milk, rather than using supplements."

Summertime Week post 5 of 5 (we’ll resume in 2 weeks folks, gone snorkeling!)

Summertime Week Posts:
1. Children gain more weight in summer than during school
2. Summer books: Bad Parenting stories are so funny (not)
3. (From the We-Kid-You-Not-File) Summer Strolls: the direction your stroller faces could affect your baby's language development
4. Seriously, is this summer camp?
5. Too much sunscreen; too much paranoid parenting

Seriously, Is This Summer Camp?

Summertime Week post 4 of 5

Camps with full-time parent liaisons?
Summer camp as a secret vacation from Ritalin?
Have meddlesome mothers and fathers forgotten that one main point of overnight camp is to give children a chance to solve problems without parental assistance?
And what is "fading parental morality"?

Tina Kelley described the changes in summer camps in her article in the NY Times. Most high-end sleep-away camps in the Northeast now employ full-time parent liaisons. The job is “almost like a hotel concierge listening to a client’s needs.”

Kelley states, “The liaisons are emblematic of what sleep-away camp experts say is an increasing emphasis on catering to increasingly high-maintenance parents, including those who make unsolicited bunk placement requests, flagrantly flout a camp’s ban on cell phones and junk food, and consider summer an ideal time to give their offspring a secret vacation from Ritalin.”

And are camp WebCams helping matters?
“I have parents calling and saying they saw their child in the background of a picture (on our website) of other children and he didn’t look happy, or his face looked red, has he been putting on enough suntan lotion, or I haven’t seen my child and I have seen a lot of other children, is my child so depressed he doesn’t want to be in a picture,” said Jay Jacobs, who has run Timber Lake Camp in Shandaken, N.Y., since 1980.

According to Norman Friedman, “They’ll give their child two cell phones, so if they get caught with the first one, just give it up and you’ll have the second one to talk to me,” he said. “That’s widespread, not isolated. I call it fading parental morality. What they’re doing is entering into delinquent behaviors with their children. And what kind of statement is that to a child?”

Summertime Week Posts:
1. Children gain more weight in summer than during school
2. Summer books: Bad Parenting stories are so funny (not)
3. (From the We-Kid-You-Not-File) Summer Strolls: the direction your stroller faces could affect your baby's language development
4. Seriously, do you call this summer camp?
5. Too much sunscreen and too much paranoid parenting

The Direction Your Stroller Faces Could Affect Your Baby's Language Development

Summertime Week post 3 of 5

Are forward-facing strollers having a negative effect on babies’ language development?

Britain’s National Literacy Trust commissioned Suzanne Zeedyk’s research team to look into this question. Forward-facing strollers are by far the most common, but babies in them are the least likely to be interacting socially. Zeedyk, a senior lecturer in developmental psychology at the University of Dundee, described her research in the New York Times.

“Of course, infants do not spend all their time in strollers, but anecdotal evidence suggests that babies can easily spend a couple of hours a day in them. And research tells us that children’s vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them. The core message of our findings is simple: Talk to your baby whenever you get the chance — and whichever direction your stroller faces.”

(My thoughts: the "core message" impresses me about this research. The rest doesn't excite me too much.)

Summertime Week Posts:
1. Children gain more weight in summer than during school
2. Summer books: Bad Parenting stories are so funny (not)
3. (From the We-Kid-You-Not-File) Summer Strolls: the direction your stroller faces could affect your baby's language development
4. Seriously, do you call this summer camp?
5. Too much sunscreen and too much paranoid parenting