Mike Tang, the California chemist who got 56 days’ “hard labor” for making his 8-year-old son walk home at about 8 p.m. in the dark, just lost his appeal. Tang had left his son outside a local grocery store as punishment for cutting corners on his homework. He told the boy he had to walk home. The child had walked the route many times before. “I just wanted to reinforce that money is hard to earn and that, if he doesn’t do a good job at school, he could end up sleeping…[with] the homeless” outside grocery stores, Tang told Reason.tv…
Author: lskenazy
America is suffering from a terrifying syndrome: IHOSFO — It Happened Once, So FREAK OUT. Only IHOSFO explains today’s MSN Headline: Why you should never leave plastic water bottles in a hot car Ok, MSN: Why shouldn’t you do this thing that I’m guessing about 200,000,000 people are doing right now, seeing as it’s August? Because one time the sun hit the water bottle just right, and the bottle + water concentrated the beam of light like a magnifying glass (or, as the reporter says, “like a laser”) and began to burn a hole in the seat. “Experts say” never…
Hi All! I have a friend doing research on bullying. His question(s): Has any minor incident been classified as “bullying” at your school? If so, what was it and how was it dealt with? Frankly, I’m curious too. No one is in favor of bullying. (Note: political discussions are for other blogs!) But neither is anyone in favor of over-reacting to the everyday frustrations and spats that kids can work out on their own. It’s that balance thing again: We don’t want to assume kids are so fragile that they can’t handle any unhappy situations without adult involvement. But not…
It’s time for us all to become familiar with the work of Michael Hynes, superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford School District on Long Island and passionate promoter of PEAS: the physical, emotional, academic and social growth of kids, not just their test scores. Hynes put his district where his mouth is, doubling recess. Kids at his schools get 40 minutes for lunch AND 40 minutes of recess — “The one block of time when they can actually make decisions for themselves.” And wouldn’t you know it — the problems at Hynes’ schools went DOWN, even as attendance went UP, with more…
Money, time, car travel, lack of free play: There are a lot of costs to starting soccer ultra-soon, ultra-seriously. This post is excerpted from a much longer one sent to us by Jon Mikelonis, father of boys 11 and 9. He writes, “My wife is from Brasilia. We reside in Northern Nevada. I am an Information Designer by trade but consider father to be my primary job. I am a believer in nature’s positive influence on us and spend my recreational time fishing and playing soccer. I am a defender of my boys natural tendency to play free.” After…
A recent Johns Hopkins study found that today’s kids are so inactive that by the time they reach 19 they have the activity level of 60-year-olds. I have a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, “19 is the New 60,” looking at childhood sluggishness and making one blindingly simple suggestion. But first off: Why are kids so sedentary? On top of the lure of electronics, which the Hopkins study recognized, there’s another unaddressed reason: The belief that kids must spend all their free time in supervised activities (and, often being driven to and from them). Senior [Hopkins] author Vadim Zipunnikov…
What a lovely memory Ike Brannon shares in The Weekly Standard. He was 5 years old, traveling with his cousins on a camping trip. The year was 1970, and Glenn Campbell was one of America’s biggest stars, country or otherwise: …One afternoon I had an urgent need to go to the bathroom, so my uncle pulled into the next service station and I ran out, alone, to the bathroom. While I was standing at the urinal a wasp landed on my shoulder and I froze in fright. The man next to me noticed it, too, and whispered to not move…
Woof woof woof! Er…I mean, chew on this: A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests the way a puppy’s mother raises it may be the key to the dog’s success, or failure. A research team at the University of Pennsylvania found that puppies destined for guide dog training are more likely to fail if they’re coddled by their mothers. Okay, once again, correlation is not causation, and guide dogs are not humans. But (bow) wow. The puppies apparently spend their time in a kiddie wading pool without water. Compared to, shall we say,…
This is a topic covered often by commenter Donald Christensen, who points out that repetition turns into belief. So when the media repeat the same type of stories day after day — murder! kidnapping! danger, danger, danger! — our brains soak it up and eventually incorporate it as “The way things are.” This brilliant short video by a motivational guy named Rob Dial reminds us that this is nothing short of brainwashing by the media: . .
This remarkable piece in The Atlantic by psychologist Jean Twenge looks at the emotional demographics of Millennials. She has been doing generational research for 25 years, and writes that: Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so….I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then she started looking at before and after the introduction of the iPhone. Here’s one of her many stark graphs: . Feelings of loneliness and “being left out”…