Posts Tagged ‘wonder’

“Educational” Toys…May NOT Be!

MotheringFeaturedBlocksCall me an old fart, but I’m not a fan of new-fangled, ring-ding-dang educational toys. My recommendation to parents always is, don’t easily trust the (sometimes wacko) things that our culture takes for granted are great for kids. Err on the side of “First, do no harm.” Trust your inner knowing and common sense, not the zeitgeist.

Children need “real time” experiences, which can be best happen with simple objects that most people wouldn’t call toys, let alone educational toys! {Read the rest… including 3 fail-safe guidelines for choosing brain-building toys… at mothering.com}

Sheltering Childhood Nurtures Your Child

(Part 4 in my 5-part series at DrGreene.com) I truly don’t mean to complicate your life in this already-over-complicated era by introducing a new condition, “TMTS.” And I feel VERY deeply for parents who are raising young ones today, when all of this is SO much more challenging!

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Protect Your Child’s Mental Health with WONDER

The Protection of Wonder | Marcy Axness, PhDAugust 11 was a day of two unrelated yet poignantly simultaneous events: the passing of Robin Williams, whose white-hot brilliance has often been characterized as other-wordly; and the celestial light-show of the Perseids meteor shower. As if heaven was welcoming its newest arrival with a fireworks display of thrilling extravagance befitting Robin’s unfathomable talent and heart.

That he was suffering so deeply came as a shock to even those who thought they knew him well. Insights into his psycho-history began emerging with revelations about his depression–possibly bipolar disorder; reports of his solitary childhood in an affluent family, being raised primarily by hired help; and Robin’s own recorded descriptions of using his comic gifts to make his mother laugh.

As people who were touched by Robin’s gifts, we feel sad. As parents who are raising children in this complicated world, we feel concern. Will our child grow up to wrestle with such demons? {Please read the rest at Natural Baby Pros}

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snowpeak under its Creative Commons license

Mining Joy from the Muck of Daily Mothering

If you’ve followed me much, maybe you’ve heard me say this already: motherhood brought me to my knees. Motherhood broke me open, and then brought me… sometimes kicking and screaming (literally)… through the muck of daily mothering to a fullness of selfhood I couldn’t have even begun to imagine at the beginning of the bumpy journey.

Spring Simplicity Series

I was a walking list of risk factors for maternal depressive symptoms (often narrowly pigeon-holed as postpartum depression). Many hands, many ideas and much good guidance helped me navigate those baby, toddler and preschooler days… days that often seemed like molasses in their pace. (They could be pretty sticky, too, come to think of it!) Here are just two invaluable guiding concepts that saw me through. {Read about them at mothering.com}

 

Give the Gift of Wonder and Brainpower

Have you seen the commercial where the mom is reading Curious George (off a screen, natch) to her curious young daughter? Then the curious little girl interrupts to ask the screen (Google’s version of Siri) “How many miles from the earth to the moon?” — and of course the screen delivers the dry mileage fact in a voice similarly soulless to Siri’s. Again I feel the need to shout from the rooftops that we thwart rather than foster our young child’s intelligence when we overlook the connection between wonder and brainpower. (more…)

Wonder-Bred: Nourishing Intelligent Minds in At Least 12 Ways

As I watched the solar transit of Venus this week, it was a vivid reminder of one of the most important Parenting for Peace qualities: wonder.

A fundamental need of the young child until around seven is an atmosphere in harmony with his natural impulse to celebrate beauty and feel reverence and awe about almost everything. But what does our culture do in this techno-materialist age? We foist upon even the youngest child a flat world of facts and commentary. At a time when the child most needs wonder and reverence, we explain away all sense of the miraculous (more…)