Smile, God

Actually, I didn't take this photo. A 7 year old friend took it. Borrowing my camera and taking some photos of a group gathering, she suddenly swung around and whispered, "Smile, God", then snapped this shot.

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Centering –A Time Out alternative

A week spent vacationing with several friends and their children gave me the opportunity to try a technique I often use at home.( I’ll write more about this vacation, probably ad nauseam, in later posts, so stay tuned…or not.)

As we had a variety of different children with various temperaments and special abilities, on this vacation, I had the opportunity to use this centering technique, shall we say… con frequencia. (Note; I’ve never quite found a good English translation of that Spanish term which means, more or less means…a whole lot!”)

Unlike a Time-Out, centering is less a discipline strategy than an anger management strategy. Discipline implies outwardly managing a child. Centering, does the opposite, giving a child the tools to manager his or her own anger.

As is typical when any group of children gets together, particularly if boys are involved, the energy level heightens exponentially after an hour or so of play. As parents, our initial response is to yell or at least wish to yell, “quiet down”. This, in my experience leads to a merry-go-round of quiet followed by whispers, followed by …well, you know.

One time when this happened, I, without really thinking headed for the boy who seemed to seemed to have “spun out” the most. Dropping to my knees, I put my hand on his shoulders and softly said, “Let’s get centered”. “Follow me”, I directed, “ Breathe in, breathe out… slowly”.

His first reaction was to giggle and execute some quick, one might say sarcastic breaths. “Oh crap, this isn’t working”, I of course, thought. And then it did. He followed my breathing pattern, slowly centered himself and returned to his play, calmer, softer and more focused.

Golly darn! It worked! Emboldened, I tried it with several of the children that week and am glad I did. Don’t you just love it when that happens?

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I got caught!

Recently I wrote a somewhat sanctimonious post about the recall of a number of mainstream toys. As a parent particularly choosy when purchasing playthings, I smugly noted that I was not impacted by the flurry of recalls we have experienced this year.

Turns out I was wrong, as this shot of our basket of Magnetix building sets indicates – don’t you hate that when that happens?

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The Real Toy Story – The Low Price- Low Safety Connection

A few weeks ago, I read a great book entitled, The Real Toy Story, by Eric Clark. As often happens, the publication of this thoughtful analysis of an industry serendipitously coincided with major issues in it.

Having worked developing and marketing children’s products, including toys, I am well aware of the inner workings of the industry and, to some extent how it mirrors that of most consumer products. That book and now this article, by the same author, highlighted some home truths, about the toy industry and about our society; you know, the consumer one.

It seems many of us have enjoyed a day at the mall at least as much as a day at the beach. As recently as this July, headlines proclaimed:

Americans' real national pastime is shopping Commentary: When the going gets
tough, the tough hit the malls

And that really is part of the problem. Once a nation of shopkeepers (OK- actually, England deserves that title) we are now a nation of über consumers.

My mother, packing her house of 40 years as she and my father prepare to sell it and move to Florida commented the other day, “My basement looks like a gift shop”. And that about sums it up for me.

I too have enjoyed my share of “recreational shopping”, which was fun when times were good, but with housing prices sucking an even greater share of consumer’s incomes, in many cases over 30%, and real wages actually FALLING since the turn of the century , those days are gone- we just don’t know it. We relentlessly continue to shop, to acquire “stuff” and therefore, seek ever lower prices to keep our shopping habit somewhere within range of our budgets.

And, we parents are some of the worst offenders as we have less and less disposable income and spend more and more on toys each year, - average $405 per child/ per year. In response, manufacturers give us lower prices to keep us shopping.

Lower prices mean moving manufacturing to lower cost countries, sweatshop conditions, and corners cut. Clark explains the spiral in detail in his article. In other words though we rail against unethical manufacturers, we too must take some of the blame.

American consumers have come to expect the highest possible quality at the
lowest possible price. …To attempt to satisfy consumer demands to keep prices
low, … toy manufacturers began moving their production sites to developing
countries. By moving these factories, manufacturers were able to sustain the
retail cost of toys much below the inflation rate of other industries.

Today, over 70% of all toys we buy are manufactured overseas, mostly in the mega manufacturing complex known as China. Nominally Communist, so orderly and controlled, fiercely capitalistically competitive and no nonsense;

Last month, China executed the former head of its food and drug safety agency for
taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies.

China is the manufacturing site of choice for toy companies and for consumers in the US who want low cost toys.

As we share some of the blame, it becomes our responsibility to share in devising a solution. Just as we have begun to shun highly processed foods and pay more to buy local and buy organic, we can do the same for toys. Toys should be a bit easier to buy safe and buy local , even at a higher price, since it’s a little difficult to cut food consumption. We can however live with fewer toys, perhaps live better.

Read more of my posts on where and how to buy safe, quality toys here

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Toy Trips- Where to Buy Good Toys

Even before the recent toy recall scares I was repeatedly asked where I purchase toys for my DS, for my friends’ children and for my nieces and nephews. The answer is diverse and ever changing. Sadly, it rarely includes your typical toy retailer - though I wish it did.

Though we do have a number of toys made in China, it’s almost inescapable, most of our toys are made in the US or in Western Europe. Most do not contain batteries, magnets or small breakable parts – or hopefully, lead based paint. Most are open-ended, well made and inspire creative play. Most are, well...toys - not electronic, character based playthings.

Having worked in the toy industry developing products and marketing them to unsuspecting small children and their parents, I am perhaps a bit more aware than the average parent of the manufacturing process. I can also “read into” claims on packaging and dissect the marketing message. I appreciate and accept that a company must make money to survive – I’m OK with that. I’m actually OK with most marketing of children’s products. I just don’t necessarily want to purchase the products sold. I don’t want you to either…hence my occasional toy buying advice .

Following the Rule of Three, I buy toys in a variety of different places. In no particular order, they are:

1. Teacher supply stores – many have a small toy section
2. Tuesday Morning – great for wooden toys
3. Marshalls – often a fairly good selection of Melissa and Doug products
4. Target – a nice selection of crunchy toys
5. Hearthsong
6. Magic Cabin
7. Museums – most museum stores have great toys
8. Used Book stores – it takes some sifting but often you can find gold
9. Specialty natural gift shops- they often have a small selection of toys
10. Fairs and festivals – costumes, old fashioned toys and child sized tools
11. Independent local toy stores – though too many just stock hard to find mainstream junk
12. Michaels- great for miniatures, science kits and crafts.
13. Amazon – though only after locating a toys elsewhere

It doesn’t have to be difficult to buy “good’ toys, a little less time spent in the places you’d typically think of to buy toys leads to more time at places that actually sell good ones.

Read more of my posts on where and how to buy safe, quality toys here



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American Made toys – What and Where to buy

The recent toy recalls out of China will surely result in parents taking a closer look at toys they purchase for their children. I know I will be one of them. Though we buy so few mainstream toys, I wasn’t really worried about the recall, I’ve been busily ensuring my friends and family who do are aware of the concerns.

I’ve written a number of posts on toy buying (No really? Not you!) – OK- a lot of posts. Typically though I’ve focused on what I buy and how I choose toys .

Today I did a little research on toys made in America. While toys made in the US or other developed countries can suffer from the same lack of oversight (trust me, after 20 years working for toy and children’s products manufacturers I know oversights are not culture specific), the safety regulations here are a bit better.

Though one of my favorite bloggers, Eco-child’s Play, reviews great toys for kids, I found another site How to Buy American which features an exhaustive list of toys made in America and includes such favorites as;

Crayola Crayons
Play-Doh
Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat
Radio Flyer Discovery Wagon
Chutes and Ladders

Though over 80% of toys are purportedly made in China, it’s still possible to buy toys made in countries with higher safety standards…like the US.

Read more of my posts on where and how to buy safe, quality toys here





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Real food – What is it Really?

I’ve been asked to write a post on Real Food by the folks at In Search of Real Food . Since this a topic that comes up frequently around here, I thought it would be fun.

As a parent with one foot planted in the organic, buy local, eat healthy camp, and one foot only, I often struggle with my definition of real food. As one commenter on the real food blog put it…

I think everyone's idea of "real food" stems from what they were used to when they grew up


That’s probably the way most of us define real food. But, since I grew up with a potato chip eating, Pepsi swilling father and a dried fruit and soybean crunching mother, I’m confused. I try my best to pass that confusion on to my son. Well, actually I try to combine the two philosophies in some meaningful way to eliminate the confusion, or something.

We eat real food at home. By that I mean REAL FOOD, fresh, locally grown, organic fruits and vegetables purchased at the farmers market; eggs, milk and other dairy products from free range, hormone free, chickens and cows; organic meat, when we can afford it.

Our dried goods and snacks are organic or low sugar or both. Sounds boring – tastes great! Since many of these items have few preservatives, we’ve become hyper aware of the chemical taste of products that are loaded with them and tend to shun them even when offered by others. We can be pretty crunchy at home.

Eating out, we shun fast food and greasy take-out. Salads and steamed vegetables and replace french fries and desert is frequently a fruit bowl.

On the other hand, visits to Dairy Queen were part of my childhood. Barbeques with hot dogs and burgers and picnics with sandwiches piled high with lunch meat were also. These too are real food. And so we do these things too; occasionally, as a treat, a big one.

Like many parents, I worry about my son’s teenage years. How will he rebel? What trouble will he seek? It may sound silly, but I hope he finds rebellious pleasure in going to MacDonald’s and stuffing candy bars under his bed…like I did!



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What To Do Instead of Watching TV - Afterschooling

Dope that I am, I only recently discovered that I what I will start doing in the fall is called, “after schooling” hile I have been reluctant to call the teaching I do with my preschooler, “home schooling”, something about the idea of formal school for the under 5 set bothers me, I WILL be “schooling” him at home while he attends kindergarten, starting in the fall.

With my powerful observation skills, I managed to notice that many, if not most parents do some “afterschooling’ themselves. This appears to include helping with homework, completing complicated projects and driving carpool to Kumon, Sylvan and Score. My friend Crystal and I have a bit of a different idea.

While, yes, we may find ourselves doing any or all of the above mentioned things but, our idea is to fill in the gaps in a mainstream education. In other words, we plan to address those areas that schools don’t – or at least don’t in adequate depth. Most everyone agrees those areas include, art and music. We also think good literature, science and history may make the list.

And when exactly do we plan to insert yet more academic learning into our poor little, overworked kiddies brains? Why, when other children are watching TV, playing with licensed characters, punching buttons on their gameboys and reading Junie B. novels.

We don’t plan to cut out sports or even an occasional video. We plan to let them play, let them read and let them create. To that end, we’ve created a curriculum, with small objectives and lots of field trips, fun books to read, projects and experiments.

This month we’re starting with rocks and pre-history. We’ve rounded up books, borrowed a “teaching trunk” from our local Natural History Museum and found a “science experiment kit” focused on our topics. One an hour or so a week each family reads books, does projects or experiments, or just talks about our topic. Once a week or so we get together and do a field trip or bigger experiment or project.

Obviously, we’re just starting so we’ll see how it goes. But, since “nature abhors a vacuum” we need something to fill the space usually filled by mainstream pursuits.

It works for me …I hope!

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The Low Impact Recall - Why Toy Recalls Rarely Effect Us

Reason # 307 to not buy mainstream toys

When there is a toy recall...we don't even have to check

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The Epoch Table - A take on the Seasonal Table

As my DS gets a bit older, he is getting more and more interested in building and creating. While this often means building spaceships out of Legos or Tinkertoys, his latest interest is prehistoric life. Specifically early mammals. Other kids get into dinosaurs, mine gets into mammoths- go figure.

As part of his exploration of this subject we’ve borrowed books from the library, rented National Geographic videos and visited Natural History museums. We also built a “mammoth hunter hut”. This project made with clay shaped into mammoth bones, twigs and scrap leather, he proudly wished to display. Not only display but, display in context.

The questions would be where.

Reluctant to squash yet another display onto his already crowded shelves and even more reluctant to perch it on my dining room table I hit upon our seasonal table. For the past few years we have kept a seasonal table, changing the theme to reflect the changing seasons several times per year.

As the summer days wane and our seasonal table is due for its fall spruce up, it seemed logical to appropriate it, temporarily, to display our stone age creation. Incorporating a few of the elements of a traditional seasonal table, we added a cloth backdrop and a felted star. It’s not quite traditional but it works for us.

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Pokemon creep

After the weekly room straightening that dispatches various play scenes my DS has created to their proper home, I often stand and survey his room. Today I proudly noted the bare carpet, the wooden and metal cars and planes, the wooden airport set and car mat. I noted the big basket of assorted Legos for imaginative building and the wide variety of Playmobil figures and accessories. Neat baskets filled with buttons, pipe cleaners, assorted rocks and twigs lined the playstand and store bought and hand made costumes were hung neatly on hooks.

I proudly noted the absence of battery operated toys, action figures, and “educational” electronics. With the exception of a few birthday party souvenirs, no licensed character toys were found in the room. Then I looked at his wall.





Hmmm. (That’s a little line of Pokemon stickers to the left of the target)

Though I can often be found on this site bemoaning the invasion of licensed characters on American childhood, it seems I’m not immune, nor apparently, do I wish to be since I obviously purchased at least a few of his wall decorations. And so goes the struggle of the Not-quite-Crunchy parent.

Reluctant to consign my DS to the ranks of the “totally weird”, I tread the fine line between enabler and advocate. While I don’t discourage interaction with mainstream children, I tend to encourage interaction with those whose parents struggle as I do.

However, with mainstream, TV kids come, Pokemon, Superman, Ninjas and Dora. I’d actually rather my DS know these characters and be somewhat conversant on the topic than be stuck on the outside of every childhood conversation. (I draw the line at American Idol though.)

So, I allow “Pokemon creep”. I follow along, buying “Cars” wall décor and allowing Pokemon stickers to appear alongside. Yet, I draw the line at purchasing Pokemon cards, action figures or Gameboys. It’s a fine line and I suspect it will be harder to stay balanced as the years go by.

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Fast Food Nation Building- Preschoolers Prefer McDonalds

Foods Tastes Better With McDonald's Logo, Kids Say blare the headlines today. This hardly strikes me as surprising.

In the interest of maximizing the sensationalism of the results, the researchers conducted their survey at low income preschools, where McDonald’s diners, one would expect would be more prevalent. In my opinion, they needn’t have bothered. While my DS has eaten at McDonalds perhaps ½ dozen times in his 5 years, I suspect he would agree that, some food, at least, tastes better when wrapped in a McDonald’s wrapper.

The survey wrapped identical foods, chicken nuggets, fries, carrots and milk in two different wrappers. The children then were asked their preference. Though the foods were exactly alike, the children found, to a significant extent that the food, supposedly from McDonald’s tasted better.

While the alarmist headlines can be depressing for those of us who worry (some what excessively) about our children’s nutritional intake, it was interesting to note that, yes, television advertising and licensed toys seem to have had some influence on the survey’s results.

Moderator analysis found significantly greater effects of branding among children with more television sets in their homes and children who ate food from McDonald's more often.

While the study revealed that only 1/3 of the children ate at McDonalds more than once per week, over 75% had McDonald’s toys at home….oh those Happy Meals! From a marketing standpoint, toys featuring the McDonald’s logo, are perhaps a more effective advertising vehicle than even TV advertising.

While the study seems to have been performed to aid in the campaign against advertising of unhealthy food on television , advertisers are already prepared to keep their name in front of their target market.McDonalds, believe it or not, is the largest distributor of toys in the United States! Yup, Kids get more toys from McDonald’s than either Toys R Us or Wal-mart.

So, while this study will no doubt continue to increase the pressure on advertisers of unhealthy food to keep their pitches off national television, the pervasive impact of branded and licensed toys will continue in our homes and in our children’s hearts.

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Organic with Pesticides?

It's China, again.

Not these lemons, by the way...various fruits and vegetables.

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