Play to Live

Play to Live is a book for those who still haven't buy the importance of play for children and adults alike. If you know someone who still believes that play is a childish waste of time, give Brian VanDongen's book. 

"Play is not just important to education; play is education.  Play is not just important to a healthy lifestyle; play is a healthy lifestyle. Play is not just important to life skills; play is a life skill."

Without going into the depth of research on play this is a convincing invitation. Invitations to allow more play time to children and also to permit ourselves, as adults, to play.

"You have my permission: Be playful."

The Self-Driven Child

The Self-Driven Child is an excellent book for parents worried about their children's future. 

"Parental anxiety isn't new. Parents have worried about their kids ever since having kids was a thing, but we believe it's worse now than before. Why? For one, we have a lot more information than we've ever had before."

I recommend "The Self-Driven Child" next to Madeline Levine "Teach your Children Well", and Alison Gopnik "The Gardener and the Carpenter". Books with supported research that help parents, and kids, enjoy themselves lowering anxiety and stress.

"Remember that your job is not to solve your children's problems but to help them learn to run their own lives"

"Your responsibility is to love and support your child. It isn't your responsibility to protect him from pain. You can't."

Stixrud and Johnson combine modern theory of neuroscience, positive psychology, and education, research references plus their own clinical practice experience along cases and practical advice. The first part of the book covers the theoretical foundation before getting into more actual problems like sleep, electronics and college.

In the end our goal as parents should be to love and enjoy our kids, to trust they will know how to get up on their feet and move along. And in the end, they will always come back when they need us.

"In a competitive, overly busy world, it's so easy to forget the basics: that enjoying your kids is one of the best things you can do for them, and for yourself."

"Teachers can teach, coaches can coach, guidance counselors can outline graduation requirements, but there's one thing only parents can do: love their kids unconditionally and provide them with a safe base at home."

The last section about college needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. If we assume p is the probability of succeeding after college and (1-p) the probability of not succeeding, and q the probability of succeeding without college and (1-q) is the the opposite. Stixrud and Johnson don't account if p>(1-p) and q<(1-q). Even the cases they develop show that succeeding without college is hard, maybe harder than succeeding in college. Yet succeeding in college by no means equals a happy life. If parents lower their expectations about their kids going to college they should acknowledge that a support system for their kids increases their chances. Considering that some college is the same as no college, the book check-list to evaluate if kids are ready for college is quite valuable. I recommend also reading Bryan Caplan "The Case Against Education", it complements what Stixrud and Johnson say. 

My rating 4 stars.

The Awakened Family

A good idea buried in rubbish.

I became interested in Tsabary after an invitation to one of her conferences. Trying to become familiar with her work I watched her TEDx talk in SF and an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Her thesis about changing the idea of perfect parenting for self-improvement through our interactions with our children is right on. Even more when combined with mindfulness to be aware and sensible to the moments parents get hooked in power struggles with their children. However, I read her book just to be disappointed.

To begin with, Tsabary's hubris is overwhelming. Not many authors sign their book with their degrees - PhD. Is this a sign of what is inside? Being a scientist (assuming the degree from Columbia means a training in the science) the reader would expect some intellectual humility. Isaac Newton said "if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulder of giants". Not for Tsabary. In spite of many of her ideas can be tracked to other people's work the books have no references, no mentions of anyone but her and her patients. The ideas in the book can be track to intellectuals like Freud, Csikszentmihalyi, Kahneman, Branden, Nietzsche, Baumrind, Pinker and the evolutionary psychologists, and more. She does not claim that the ideas are original but the omision speaks for itself.

Tsabary's work is not only unoriginal but contradictory. For instance she blames the parenting errors to the ego, but also advices that if parents do not care for themselves little can be done; Ego-Self long debate which Tsabary ignores and oversimplifies like in.

"The key to conscious parenting is to become aware of our ego, this persistent voice in our head, and its false ways. To parent well, it is imperative that we realize the ego isn’t who we are."

Tsabary's idea is to "re-educate" the ego. The ego is emotional, impulsive. By being aware we use our reason. In other words her advice can be summarized using Kahneman's terminology as making system 2 take control before relying on system 1 to respond in automatic but more coherently with our values.

Finally, irritating and bad science is her generalization of bad parenting. Maybe from her own experience as a mother and clinical psychologist she considers that all parents are dysfunctional, victims of their own parents, ill-fated, unable to have moral judgment and exercise their free will to be better. At times the book makes the reader feel overwhelmed; I'm such a bad parent. Human contradiction show up in all spheres; work, love relationships, leisure, education, etc. yet we keep moving forward improving. Why is parenting different? Tsabary's rhetoric resembles some religions by making people feel bad before taking the salvation ace under her sleeve.

Courage to Grow

Courage to Grow is personally relevant because I'm part of the story. Laura Sandefer shares her experience along her husband, Jeff, in founding and moving Acton Academy from an idea to an international success. As she clearly discloses the book is not a how-to or a treatise of Educational theory. It is a beautiful personal story full of challenges, successes, discoveries and hard moments, but overall it is an inspiring story for those willing to do something to change how kids are educated and raise these days.

Laura shares how they decided not to sign their kids in a traditional school after attending a Montessori school. The Sandefer's dilemma echoes with our own of not accepting the fact that the only option was putting our kids in a traditional school. 

In opposition of the traditional approach of Education where results, grades, titles and degrees are what matter, the Sandefer's wondered "Can a vision of school rationally encounter the power of love and claim it?" and they didn't stop at the question and moved forward and made Acton Academy a reality.

Acton Academy was quickly recognized as an alternative to the traditional system. It's differentiation is "Our biggest point of separation is the upside-down power structure that pushes control and decision making to the children." Indeed what I value the most about Acton Academy is that children became responsible of their own Education and life. 

"A month after their visit, Juan had already found families (we were one of them) who would enroll their children. And with that Acton Academy Guatemala City began to take shape."

Acton Academy is an evolving community that has extended world-wide. It is not a simple franchise system but a sharing of values and principles that anchor a joined effort to improve the education of our kids.

Thanks to Jeff and Laura, Juanma and Analu for trusting the children and taking the lead.

Playborhood

Mike Lanza is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with whom I identified, not because his professional career but his devotion to his children and family. Like me, and many parents, Mike was concerned by the few opportunities children have to freely play this days. 

Mike's story came to me after reading an article in the New York Times by Melanie Thernstrom. The story was interesting but had a feeling of critique that I couldn't understand. Mike is not a play expert but a father who is not sitting in his couch whining and waiting for the government to fix his problem, he honestly is trying to provide a safe and fun environment for his kids to play. It was a relief to read play experts like Tim Gill, Peter Gray or  Lenore Skenazy, appreciate what Lanza is doing. 

But Mike didn't stop at doing something for his kids, he wrote Playbordhood. He researched about other initiatives all over the US of people acting and not just complaining. People of different socioeconomic backgrounds, in different setting, with different approaches. His book is not only a collection of stories but a guide for those who want to do something; from selecting the right neighborhood, to creating attractions for kids, to building a community, and more. He lays out a plan on how to create a playborhood. He is not naive in pretending that this is a magic potion that will fix the problem, kids outgrow the attractions, there is fierce competition from electronics, other parents have their own fears and preferences, etc. His message can be summarized as don't give up and keep trying. 

"My approach has been to stay the course as long as the positive response outnumber positive responses outnumber the negative ones. When I do get a specific negative reaction, I try to accommodate whatever complaint the neighbor might have."

Some of the critiques to Mike's solution are that he is an affluent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and thus he can spend lots of money on his playground. Mike challenges this idea not only by recognizing other initiatives with fewer resources but invites people to put their money in their priorities.

"I hope readers of this book will re-evaluate the relative budgets for the inside and outside of their homes. When weather is OK, a great yard is far more important to kids than the inside of the house. Moreover, even in bad weather months, kids don't appreciate expensive decor at all..... Having a great home entertainment system inside the house is attractive for them, but they will benefit far more from a great yard"

One of the key concepts of Playborhood is they are right were children live. Other alternatives like playgrounds and city parks are places where kids can't go on their own at the time they please. Going to those places become a planned activity. People come from different locations making it hard to create a culture of play and a community. Playborhoods have their issues, Mike may have done things differently from suggested by experts but the big picture is that this is an idea to stimulate others to act and improve.

Monica and me visiting Mike's playborhood

Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers

Lucy Jo Palladino's book, Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers: A Step-by-Step Guide to Balancing Your Child's Use of Technology is a timely contribution to parenting in the 21st Century. An update version of the classical Marshmallow Experiment, the technology devices of today are magnets to the Involuntary Attention of kids and teens (and adults). 

Palladino complements the traditional research about willpower with modern results in neuroscience. The limbic (primitive) system arm wrestling with the modern man's prefrontal cortex that develops during puberty and adolescence.  

As a parent struggling with two kids of this age Palladino's work seems like a great tool (yet to put into practice). It gives perspective and ideas on how to help the children learn how to get the advantage of technology while they learn to self control, to use their Voluntary Attention. As Palladino says "Your child's ability to use an off button is quite possibly the most important technological competency she can learn". 

For parents the book has two gifts. First it emphasizes the importance of the relationship between parents and children. Nothing is more important than a good relationship among them and many times our effort to reduce the abuse of electronics ends up deteriorating the relationship. Second it puts the finger on the responsibility of the parents. Often we feel offended by the responses from our kids without acknowledging our contribution to the problem. Beginning with using e-nannies to giving a bad example with our own habits and not being able to separate the action from the agent. 

The seven step guide begins with an parent autoevaluation and as it goes helps us focus on priorities, changes of midsets, challenges, and results. Even though Palladino takes the parent back in the arena, it  reduces the stress of the job by clearing expectations and giving tools to kindly cope with the frustration of setbacks while patiently celebrate the results.

As adults we have a great deal to offer our kids. Since our mental abilities are fully developed Palladino suggest for instance asking the right questions and providing the metacognition necessary to understand the big picture and long term implications of our actions.

Additional resources like the American Academy of Pediatrics Media Life  Plan recommendations and references to more in depth studies enhance the toolkit provided by the book. 

Technology is part of our lives, having the tools to focus and use them wisely is a challenge for all, but specially for kids who are learning to use their prefrontal cortex. In the past attention snatchers were less exuberant but the plain mind-wondering has always existed. Our evolutionary drag is a challenge for modern world, and electronics are just a new struggle field. Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers is a workbook to help our kids be successful adults and us happy parents.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars.