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

Bad Parenting Humor; Not Funny if you ask me

Summertime Week post 2 of 4

A number of books are in stores this summer and they attempt to describe the lighter side of bad parenting. It's Sick.

I support things in families which help both children and parents like marriage, for example. Strong marriage benefits spouses and their children. Along come several books that reveal and even brag about incidents of bad parenting. Ellen Gamerman’s Wall Street Journal article does a terrific job of describing this new trend. Actually, I pray that it is not a trend in fact, but rather just a trend in print.

Instead of “not funny,” our young son (two decades ago) used to say, “N-O- Funny, Daddy,” if he did not like something that I had said. And that’s the feeling I got when reading sections of Gamerman’s article such as, “When her two young sons first started walking, a mother in California would gently push them over.” The thinking was that her sons would be better off developmentally by crawling, first. A physical therapist told her to do this. It gave the mother a “nasty thrill.”

Friends, this is garbage and it nauseates me. A website is described that logged 500,000 confessions from women in 2 years. If these admissions on websites are towards the goal of better parenting, fine. But if this is one big joke, I respond with “N-O-funny!”

And You? do you find humor in these mischievous confessions? Am I being too old school here? Let’s hear your comments.

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, you call this summer camp?

Summertime...and the livin is...Weighty

Summertime Post 1 of 4

American children are heavier than ever. Many people point their finger at schools: snack machines, high calorie lunches, and curtailed daily exercise. Jane Brody wrote in the NY Times, "Although schools are hardly off the hook, a study published in The American Journal of Public Health, which tracked the physical condition of 5,000 children as they passed through kindergarten and first grade, found that the biggest gains in body mass index occurred in the summer when parents had sole responsibility for their children’s diets and exercise opportunities." So keep an eye on your children folks. And be sure to lead by example: when you go out for that much-needed ice cream this time of year, remember all the low-fat and low-sugar options that are just as refreshing.

Summer is also an opportunity, an ideal time to start children on a wholesome nutritional track and to encourage enjoyable physical activities. Brody (as usual) gives some great suggestions in this article.

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, you call this summer camp?