Recently my 9-year-old son worked with another 9-year-old boy to develop a series of math word problems. This is what they came up with: Notice a theme? “Blew up.” “Died.” “Crashed.” Boys are drawn to violence and destruction, and that’s not a bad thing. In
This past weekend, I had the honor of speaking at the InHome conference in St. Charles, Illinois. I presented 3 sessions: Single Parent Homeschooling, Homeschooling Boys, and Boundless Energy: Understanding (and Respecting) Boys’ Need for Movement. It was an inspiring experience, to say the least!
Nutritionally speaking, we’ve raised our two boys and one girl exactly the same…but the outcomes have been disturbingly different. Case in point: Halloween. We don’t let our kids have much food coloring. So after they came home from trick-or-treating this year, where do you think
My boys, as I’ve mentioned before, are not adventurous eaters. And you know what? Neither am I. I’ve gotten better as I’ve gotten older: In the old days, I considered yogurt a scary food and refused to eat Chinese or Mexican food because I couldn’t
Recently, a good friend of mine, a teacher at a local parochial school, announced via Facebook that her school was hosting a Pay to Play Day today. The word “play” caught my eye, but the details of the announcement are what stirred my passion. Why?
All month, I’ve been talking about the importance of play. And all month, my focus has been on what adults can do to protect and rescue kids’ right to play. Well, yesterday my very own children reminded me not to underestimate the power of children.
Play might be an internationally-recognized right of childhood, but as a society, we’re not doing so well at protecting play. Consider: According to one 2008 study, 25% of U.S. elementary schools don’t have scheduled daily recess for all grades Schools with a high population of
Kids come into the world with an innate need to learn, to understand and to create meaning, and for the first few years of their lives, play is the method by which they explore the world. We don’t need to teach them how to play
Somehow, our society has lost touch with the importance of play. We talk a good game (“Play is the work of childhood“) but our actions (reducing recess, eliminating playground football, making playgrounds so safe that kids find them boring) betray our true intentions. As a
I’m worried about our kids. Yesterday, I started my day off with an 8 AM meeting with the middle school principal. The topic: playground football. Football (actually, all play involving footballs) has recently been banned from recess at the middle school. I wanted to know
Talk about an article designed to attract my attention. An article published in The Guardian, a British newspaper, carries this provocative headline and subtitle: “Girls ‘more resilent’ than boys at school: Girls from single-parent families outperform boys in class because they are less affected by
Raising boys is a lot of work! And if you’re like most parents I know, you probably feel likely overwhelmed right now. Winter holiday + already busy schedule + tight family budget = stress. My question to you is, What are you doing to deal
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