World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.  The only way to reduce the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS is to talk about it and educate ourselves about it. The stigma can only continue as long as the silence does. This is what I wish everybody knew about AIDS:

-HIV can NOT be spread through casual or household contact, nor has it ever been spread in a workplace, school or any social environment. HIV is not spread through hugging, kissing, shaking hands, sharing a bed, touching the same objects, sneezing, coughing, sharing food & drinks, bathing, swimming, sharing a toilet or any other casual way. HIV and AIDS can only be spread through sexual contact, birth, breastfeeding and intravenously (such as sharing needles).

- HIV is now considered a chronic but manageable disease, even easier to manage than diabetes. With treatment, people who are HIV positive can live indefinitely without developing AIDS and can live long and full lives. Positive couples and individuals can now give birth to healthy HIV negative babies.

- People who are HIV+ deserve to be treated with the same love, respect, support and acceptance that all people do. HIV is now in every community. The chance that you know somebody with HIV is very likely, yet people are afraid to talk about it due to fear that they will be treated with ignorance.

Additional information on HIV can be found on the Centers for Disease Control website.

What is Homeschooling Really Like? Hint-forget the stereotypes

Sandra Dodd posted this wonderful video on Homeschool News and Muse. It was recorded at the Homeschool Association of California 2009 Conference. Interesting peak into what homeschoolers are really like, as opposed to the stereotypes. Also a good one to share with friends and family members who don’t really understand it. The video shows a good diversity of various different methods of homeschooling and unschooling.

Literacy

 

“At the start of WWII, millions of men showed up at registration offices to take low-level academic tests before being inducted… Eighteen million were tested and 17,280,000 were judged to have the minimum competence in reading to be a solder – a 96 percent literacy rate.

WWII was over in 1945. Six years later, another war began in Koreas and several million more men were tested for military service. This time 600,000 were rejected. Literacy in the draft pool had mysteriously dropped to 81 percent…This group had more years in school, with more professionally trained teachers, and more scientifically selected textbooks than the WWII men. Yet, it could not read, write, count, speak or think as well as the earlier, less-schooled contingent.

A new American war began in Vietnam in the middle 1960’s. By its end in 1973, the number of men found non-inducible by reason of inability to read safety instructions, interpret road signs, decipher orders – the number found illiterate in other words – had reached 27 percent. Vietnam-era young men had been far more intensely schooled than either of the two earlier groups, but now the 4 percent illiteracy of 1941, transmuted into the 19 percent illiteracy rate of 1952, was (in 1973) 27 percent.”

-Excerpt from Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto

 

Let’s talk about child restrictions: Lying

I have already posted a PBS/Scientific American study about the importance of not restricting what children eat. This is an extremely important topic to me and I have plenty to say about child restrictions based on my own experience.

Let’s talk about lying. Strictly forbidden in my house when I was growing up. However, the truth wasn’t exactly allowed either. I would have loved to tell my parents the truth about where I was going as a teenager, for example, but the truth was often frowned upon; so after being denied however many times, I finally realized the best thing to do was to lie. Had my parents been able to hear the truth, they would have known where I was going (which would have been highly beneficial in any sort of emergency situation.) But they had no idea where I was most of the time because they couldn’t accept the truth. Usually I was just at friends’ houses where there was no parental supervision, but I often had to lie and tell them I was going to the local billiards or to a movie. The lesson I learned was not to tell the truth to those in a position of authority, no matter how innocent the truth may seem.

So what’s a parent to do? Never lie to a child. Model telling the truth. Be open to listening to children without judging them. We may be able to guide them on their path in making good decisions, but as soon as we start restricting them when they tell us the truth, we can be sure that they will resort to lying the next time.

Galileo Quote

“You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it
within himself.”           -Galileo

No Lesson Plans? No Problem

Great article about an unschooling family in Maryland.

Our Place in New England

I bought a small cheap plot of land in New England near the coast in 2002.

It has a rundown cottage on it and the inspector told me before I purchased it that the cottage would only last another five years. I was fine with that as my plan was to build a summer house once the cottage was no longer rentable (sorry if that’s not a word). Here we are in 2009 and the cottage is officially no longer rentable. And the current market value makes it not worth selling. And we’re not ready to start a big building project as we are currently living overseas. For that matter, we won’t be ready to do a big building project in 2010 either since that is ‘the year of the adoption.’ We do love the location.

I know this sounds like a long shot, but there was a lovely cottage in the neighborhood which was recently moved off it’s lot onto a different lot across the bay, so we’re putting the message out there to the Universe that we would love to find a house that needs to be moved. There are so many perfectly good houses that end up getting demolished and we’re determined to save one. It fits perfectly with our environmentally conscious way of doing things and a house would be the ultimate thing to re-use/recycle. And just think how much would get saved from the landfills. If anybody out there in blogland knows of any houses in New England that need to be removed or demolished, please do let us know!

Book Review: Playful Parenting

Just finished reading Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen, PhD.  This is a must read for every parent or soon-to-be-parent. It gets 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon and rave reviews for good reason. Here’s the review from Publisher’s Weekly:

“Pretend… that we’re really gonna be late and you’re really mad,” Emma, daughter of psychologist and play therapist Cohen, whispered one morning, cleverly transforming their morning ritual into a fun game. According to Cohen, children of all ages have an ongoing need for connectedness, security and attachment; playful interaction with parents is an important way to develop such bonds. Through play, parents can help their kids develop greater confidence, express bottled up or difficult feelings, recover from daily emotional upheavals, negotiate agreements, express love and not least have fun. In his therapy practice, Cohen has used play to help both severely troubled and securely attached kids negotiate the daily travails of life; he demonstrates how to prevent and address serious problems with silliness and laughter. Cohen acknowledges that it is sometimes difficult for busy and harried parents to relearn play, and that playtime is both physically challenging and tiring. However, using examples from his practice, research and personal experience, he intelligently guides parents through the possibilities awaiting them if they are willing and able to loosen up. The book explores play with compassion, but is often so funny that parents will find themselves chortling out loud with recognition and anticipation.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Holiday Gift Idea – Coffee!

Just Love Coffee Roasters sells organic fair trade coffee to help orphans find permanent loving families. Adoptive families can register with Just Love to help raise funds toward the cost of their adoptions. Purchases can also be made through the online store which benefits Kids Care Orphanage in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. Turns out Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee and the living conditions and wages of the average Ethiopian coffee farmer is what inspired the owner of Just Love to begin his own fair trade coffee roasting company. All are available ground or whole bean. Click the picture for the catalog page. Many others online. Great gift for all the coffee lovers on your list.

African Skies mixed blend. 16 oz. $12.95

 

Holiday Sampler. Four 6 oz bags. $21.95

 

Swiss Water Decaf. 13 oz. $12.95

 

Sumatra.  13 oz.  $12.95

Holiday Gift Idea – Africa Bags

Africa Bags are lovingly handmade by women in Malawi and Swaziland.

They make wonderful holiday gifts.

Click on the photos to go directly to that item’s catalog page.

They have a huge selection and the prices are affordable at $20-$25.

Africa Bags is a non-profit organization doing charitable work in Malawi, Africa. They sell cloth bags that are hand-crafted in five small villages. The organization enters into ultra poor villages with foot-powered treadle sewing machines, cloth and the materials/resources necessary. Over 4,000 bags were purchased in 2008. The bags are sold in the United States and 100% of all profits are returned to the villages.

John Holt Quote

A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought,  even more basic than his freedom of speech.” -John Holt

Dr. Jane Aronson Honored as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year

Photographed by Brigitte Lacombe in Maplewood, New Jersey, surrounded by kids from families she has advised and supported through the adoption process; her sons, Ben and Des, are directly behind her.

“What got to me most was the smell,” says pediatrician Jane Aronson of her years touring overseas orphanages in the nineties, “that terrible odor of filth and illness and neglect.” Once home, she couldn’t shake the sights she’d seen: famished, sore-covered babies in Romania; glassy-eyed AIDS-doomed kids in Vietnam. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” says Aronson. “There was no way I was going to continue practicing medicine without helping the kids left behind.” Her solution: Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), which she started in 1997. Within a few years WWO was providing AIDS drugs for HIV positive children in Ethiopia and Vietnam—one of the first organizations of any type to do that; launching the “orphan rangers,” essentially a Peace Corps through which volunteers work in orphanages; and building a school in Ethiopia. Today Aronson is credited with bringing the plight of orphans and the importance of adoption to the world’s attention. “She shone a spotlight on what we should be doing,” says adoption expert Adam Pertman, head of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. “A lot of people give lip service to wanting to make the world better for children. She actually does it.”

As an advocate, Aronson has improved the lives of 20,000 kids; as a doctor, she saves them one at a time. From her small Manhattan office, wallpapered with photos of smiling children, the jeans-clad pediatrician works with adopting parents—including celebs like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt—giving them the medical and emotional support they need to ensure that their new family can work. “Dr. Aronson gave us courage,” says Meg D’Ariano, who adopted a now perfectly healthy girl from China after being told the baby had insurmountable health problems. “She said, ‘Go get her.’” A parent to two adopted children, Aronson is determined to show the world’s orphans that she will always look out for them. She notes that she’s learned to say “see you soon” to the kids in six languages. “I never say goodbye.”

Building an Unschooling Nest

Excerpts from http://sandradodd.com/nest

“Unschooling works well when parents are interesting, positive, thoughtful, considerate, generous, passionate, honest, respectful individuals.” —Deb Lewis

What will help to create an environment in which unschooling can flourish? For children to learn from the world around them, the world around them should be merrily available, musically and colorfully accessible, it should feel good and taste good. They should have safety and choices and smiles and laughter. -Sandra Dodd

“If I see an unusual fruit in the grocery store, I buy it and take it home and put it on the table for others to notice. If a kid is in the store with me I might say, “Oooh look at this. Let’s take it home and cut it open.”

“This is why some of us dislike the term “child-led” or “child- directed” learning — unschooling is not child-led or child-directed learning — that makes it sound like the parent should just be a “follower.” Not so — parents are active participants and part of the job of an unschooling parent is to keep the child in mind and to fill his/her life with just the right amount of interesting new experience, chances to repeat experiences, down time, and so on.

“The only way to make it ‘just right’ is to offer and not coerce. If you don’t ‘offer’ stuff/ideas/experiences, then the kids aren’t going to even know what’s out there. If you push too much on them, they can feel pressured and that their learning is being taken over by you.

It isn’t all that tricky, though, when you live with a kid and pay attention and care deeply — to keep that child in mind and provide him/her with a pretty steady stream of options/possibilities/ideas/ stuff, etc. Invite and offer a lot — it is your job to create a stimulating and interesting environment around her.”  –Pam Sorooshian

“Open up to the expectation of learning. It helps if the parent is willing for a conversation to last only fifteen seconds, or to go on for an hour. Remember that if your “unit study” is the universe, everything will tie in to everything else, so you don’t need to categorize or be methodical to increase your understanding of the world. Each bit is added wherever it sticks, and the more you’ve seen and wondered and discussed, the more places you have inside for new ideas to stick. A joyful attitude is your best tool. We’ve found that living busy lives with the expectation that everything is educational has made each morning, afternoon and evening prime learning time.”  —Sandra Dodd

Take them grocery shopping, and while you’re there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they’re doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don’t “teach” them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, “Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree.”

How about a pineapple — bought one fresh, lately? Talked about Hawaii? Just say, “Aloha,” while handing the kids a slice. Or, maybe you’ll get really into the whole idea of Hawaii and you’ll see connections everywhere — Hawaiian shirts at the thrift store, flowers to me leis, someone playing a ukelele, a video of a volcano exploding (maybe that will inspire you to want to make your own volcano with baking soda and vinegar).

I’m not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I’m saying that, if you’re not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you’ll have to make an effort tobe more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

It might have to seem a little artificial, for a while, if it isn’t natural to a parent to just “be” this way.  –Pam Sorooshian

The Myths of the Teen Mind

Audio broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio. This is an interview with psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein – author, visiting scholar at University of California, and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/13/midmorning1/

“In more than 100 cultures around the world, there is no teen turmoil. None. There’s no conflict with parents, there’s no drug abuse, there’s no depression, there’s no suicide. Nothing. They don’t even have a word for adolescence.”

“Any culture that severs the connection between young people and older people creates this problem. In other words, if you isolate young people from adults and you trap them, as we have done, in this peculiar world of their own where they learn everything from each other, and of course in our culture everything they know comes from divisions in the media and fashion industries; if you do that and isolate them from adults and then treat them as if they are still children which makes some of them really angry and depressed, you create adolescence.

Disney Princesses, Deconstructed

Found at Love is Not Enough

Three Year Old Raises $500 to Help Children Get Art Supplies

Thanks to Lenore at Free-Range Kids for posting a link to this great article about 3 year old Megan Ouellette who raised $500 for art supplies which she then donated to the charity Cradles to Crayons. I love this article because it shows how far kids can get when parents take them seriously.

New Yorker ’Play Nice’ Article

SHOUTS & MURMURS

PLAY NICE

by Simon Rich AUGUST 4, 2008

If adults were subjected to the same indignities as children . . .

PARTY

Zoe: Dad, I’m throwing a party tonight, so you’ll have to stay in your room. Don’t worry, though—one of my friends brought over his father for you to play with. His name is Comptroller Brooks and he’s roughly your age, so I’m sure you’ll have lots in common. I’ll come check on you in a couple of hours. (Leaves.)

Comptroller Brooks: Hello.

Mr. Higgins: Hello.

Comptroller Brooks: So . . . um . . . do you follow city politics?

Mr. Higgins: Not really.

Comptroller Brooks: Oh.

(Long pause.)

(Zoe returns.)

Zoe: I forgot to tell you—I told my friends you two would perform for them after dinner. I’ll come get you when it’s time. (Leaves.)

Comptroller Brooks: Oh, God, what are we going to do?

Mr. Higgins: I know a dance . . . but it’s pretty humiliating.

Comptroller Brooks: Just teach it to me.

CAPITOL HILL

Lobbyist: If you fail to pass this proposition, it will lead to the deaths of thousands. Any questions?

Senator: Why are you wearing a sailor suit?

Lobbyist: My children decided to dress me this way, on a whim. I told them it was an important day for me, but they wouldn’t listen.

Senator: It’s adorable.

Lobbyist: O.K. . . . but do you agree with the proposition? About the war?

Senator: Put on the cap.

GARAGE

Lou Rosenblatt: Can I drive your car? I’ll give it back when I’m done.

Mrs. Herson: I’m sorry, do I know you?

Lou Rosenblatt: No, but we’re the same age and we use the same garage.

Mrs. Herson: No offense, sir, but I really don’t feel comfortable lending you my car. I mean, it’s by far my most important possession.

Brian Herson: Mom, I’m surprised at you! What did we learn about sharing?

Mrs. Herson: You’re right . . . I’m sorry. Take my Mercedes.

Lou Rosenblatt: Thank you. Can I come over to your house later? I’m lonely and I don’t have any friends.

Mrs. Herson: Well . . . actually . . . I kind of had plans tonight.

Brian Herson: Are you excluding him?

Mrs. Herson: No, of course not! (Sighs.) Here’s my address, sir. The party starts at eight.

Lou Rosenblatt: I’ll show up a little early.

Mrs. Herson: What’s that on your face?

Lou Rosenblatt: Mucus. I haven’t learned how to blow my nose yet, so I just go around like this all the time.

Mrs. Herson: Oh.

Lou Rosenblatt: I’ll see you soon, inside your house. ♦

Restricting what children eat

I grew up in a house where there were many rules about food including what I could / couldn’t eat and how much I could eat.  Staying at the table until finishing eating was enforced and I was also forced to eat unpallatable foods (or be punished). Now as an adult I do eat a wide range of healthy food, but I have a difficult time with things that I had been taught were “junk” foods. For example, I cannot keep cookies, potato chips/crips, or ice cream in the house. Period. If it’s in the house, I’ll eat it in one sitting. Mark grew up in a house where food was not restricted. He is the healthiest eater I have ever met. He eats more fruit than you can imagine and he will always choose fruit for a snack over anything else. With his lunch every day he eats a tupperware container full of raw chopped vegetables because that’s what he enjoys eating, not because he’s on any kind of diet. So for us it’s a no-brainer; we will have lots of options of various food for our child(ren) to choose from and they will not be restricted access to anything. Sound extreme? Check out this research study on PBS.

A Little Perspective on Child Safety

Lenore at Free Range Kids has another brilliant blog post about child safety and how it compares to the recent UNICEF Progress Report on Child Protection.

‘No Baby Products Needed’ article

Here is an article for Natural Life Magazine called No Baby Products Needed. I LOVE the anti-consumerism message and I must admit, I’m always a bit overwhelmed when I see just how much STUFF people have for their babies. I always notice the kids playing with the non-toys, like filling little socks with coins and emptying them out again. Hopefully we won’t get too wrapped up in the huge baby products industry.