Have you or your child ever said, “I’m just no good at math?” If so, then new research from Norway delivers news that’s both good and bad:

• There’s no such thing as being naturally good at math.
• Practicing math makes one better at math.

Many of us have believed that math ability is something a person is born with – or not. So it might be hard to believe that this isn’t so. Here is how researchers came to the conclusion that mathematicians aren’t born that way.

Scientists asked 70 Norwegian fifth-graders to complete nine different math tasks. Each task required knowledge of different mathematical operations and different applications of mathematical thinking. If math ability were inborn, individual children would have been equally good (or equally bad) on all nine tasks. But they weren’t. Children were better at tasks they had practiced in school and less successful in other tasks. No one appeared to be “naturally good” at math or “naturally bad.”

This is bad news for those of us who have used the excuse that we’re just not good at math as a reason for not trying very hard. But it’s good news for those of us who would like to do better at math than we are doing right now. Practice does make perfect.

So here are some math tips for parents.

1. Start your child early in thinking mathematically. People who seem “naturally good” at math are people who were surrounded by numbers and opportunities for problem-solving from a young age. Play with math ideas as they come up naturally during play.
2. Start early in supporting your child in mastering math tasks. You might dread helping your child with math homework, but if you start in kindergarten you and your child can learn math together. Don’t imagine your child is “too young” to understand.
3. Accept no excuses. As your child gets older, the math gets more complicated. But your child is smart. She can do this. And you are smart too. Even if you don’t understand her math homework, you can. Learn this stuff together.
4. Don’t let others make excuses either. Your child’s other parent, his grandmother, or even his teacher might hint that he’s just not good at math. They might say he has other wonderful qualities so his lack of math skill isn’t a problem. But of course it is. Math is essential. Don’t let anyone tell you (or tell your child) that it’s okay to be bad at math.

The bad news is we are all responsible for doing the hard work of learning math. The good news is we can be successful if we try.

Help your child to try harder.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Feeding children is one of the greatest responsibilities. It’s also one of the most repetitive, challenging and mundane chores.  Do you ever feel confused about feeding your child? What’s healthy? How much and how little of certain foods you should be giving?

Some parents cave under the pressure of the constantly changing and unattainable standard of perfect nutrition and slim bodies.

Some parents get caught up in these rules and unintentionally use restrictive feeding with their kids. The intentions are good –to give kids just the right foods, in the right amounts, so that they get every nutrient they could possibly need, in the right amounts, so that they are the right size and shape.

Restrictive feeding, although well intentioned, has a dark side. It involves controlling every little bite that goes into your child’s mouth.  Closely watching portion sizes (think pre-portioned plates), purchasing diet, low-calorie, or fat-free foods, and limiting second helpings at the dinner table are all signs of restrictive feeding. Restrictive feeding is often done in the name of perfect eating or improving a child’s weight and health.

Research indicates that restrictive feeding isn’t working for kids and may be promoting an environment of overeating. It also links this practice to weight gain.

Parents’ perceptions of their child’s weight status are also connected to restrictive feeding behaviors. In other words, if you think your child is “big” or gaining too much weight, you are more likely to control every little bite they eat.

Like adults, kids want what they can’t, or don’t, have. It’s human nature. Unlike adults, kids have less control over their biological drive to eat. They are less likely to talk themselves out of eating or wanting something in particular to eat. This situation—wanting something to eat but being restricted from eating it– can trigger overeating.

Perhaps we need to begin paying more attention to how we feed our kids. Providing an abundant table of healthy food is both satisfying to the eye and to the tummy. Feeling hungry and being able to satisfy that hunger is more than a full belly–it’s emotional fullness too. Feeling emotionally and physically full is what it takes to stop a backlash of overeating in our children.

Do you know you’ll feed your child approximately 28,000 times before he leaves the nest?

While feeding is one of the most time-consuming jobs of parenthood, it’s often thankless and plagued with insecurity. And a lot of work! The effort to feed a child involves planning meals and menus, procuring food, preparing and serving it, and cleaning it all up.

The surprising fact is this: Just because you get all the nutrition details and food figured out doesn’t guarantee you will raise a healthy eater.

One important determinant to your success with nutrition and feeding your family is your feeding style. Parent feeding styles, or the attitudes and actions you use in the process of feeding your child, closely mirror your parenting style. While one feeding style is generally used most of the time, all the feeding styles can overlap and mingle.

Feeding styles also mimic our own eating experiences as a child–they are deeply ingrained and our “go to” method for feeding our own children. There are four parenting styles and as an extension of this, feeding styles (be sure to read to the bottom!):

Authoritarian feeding style is also known as a “parent-centered” style. In the realm of feeding, this style is associated with “the clean plate club,” where rules about eating are emphasized, from trying foods to completing a meal. Dessert is contingent upon eating dinner. Parents plate the food for their children. Eating is directed by the parent, rather than self-directed by the child. A child may become resistant to trying new food, picky, or an over-eater. Weight problems, both underweight and overweight, are correlated with this feeding style.

Permissive feeding style is also known as “the say yes to anything parent,” and reflects a child-directed style. Even though the parent says “no” or a limitation may be the first response, “yes” ultimately reigns. The classic example of this is the mother who is attempting to manage the vocal child in the grocery store who wants candy at the checkout stand. He begs and begs, hearing, “no, no, no…well….okay, I guess so.” Children of permissive feeders may become overweight, as research shows that the limits on calorie-dense foods may be unlimited.

Neglectful feeding style often produces the unprepared parent: irregular shopping, empty cabinets and refrigerators, and no plan for meals. Food and eating may lack importance for the parent, and that may transcend to feeding their child. Children who experience this feeding style may feel insecure about food and eating, and unsure about when they will have their next meal, whether they will like it, and if it will be enough. These children may become overly focused on food and frequently question the details around mealtime.

Authoritative feeding style is the “love with limits” feeding style, promoting independent thinking and self-regulation within the child, but also setting boundaries around food and eating. The authoritative feeder determines the details around the meal (what will be served, when it will happen, and where it will be served), but allows the child to decide whether they will eat what is prepared, and how much they will eat. Trust and boundaries are the basis of this parent feeding style. Children who have authoritative parents in the home tend to be leaner, good at self-regulating their food consumption, and feel secure with food and eating. The most current research advocates this style of feeding as an effective childhood obesity prevention approach.

What’s your feeding style and how is it affecting your child’s eating and health?

If you’ve ever fed a toddler soft food, you know the outcome: food on her face, in her hair, between her fingers, all over the high chair tray, and quite a bit on her clothes and even on the floor. A mess!

But also a lesson. Babies who mush up their oatmeal and fingerpaint with the pureed squash are actually learning about non-solid objects. They are expanding their vocabularies and their notion of how the world works.

In a word, messy eaters get smarter.

It’s easy to learn about solid objects. Blocks, stuffed toys, cars and balls keep their shape and can be rotated and played with without changing. But how do children learn about squishy things? Researchers at the University of Iowa wanted to know.

So they put 70 16-month-old children in front of 14 non-solid objects, like applesauce, pudding, and soup. The children were allowed to do what they wanted with each substance, including touching it, smelling it, and eating it. After one minute, the scientists asked children to identify the same subject when it was presented in a different amount and in different shapes. This meant that children couldn’t rely on looks alone to identify the substance but had to know more about it.

This is important, as lead author Lynn Hall pointed out. “For a lot of non-solid stuff, you can’t really tell what it is just by looking at it. What matters is what it’s made of. Is that whiskey or ice tea in the glass you just grabbed? Or similarly, for children, is that baby lotion or strawberry yogurt?” Touching, tasting and smelling are the only ways to really know. Says Hall, if children have “a lot of practice touching and eating non-solid foods, then they know it’s okay to get in there and figure it out.”

Children in the study who did the most messing around with the foods in the one minute they had, were better able to identify the same foods when it was disguised. In addition, children did better when they were sitting in a high chair than when they were sitting at a regular table. The high chair spelled an exploration zone, apparently, and helped children investigate more.

What’s the take-away? Realize that when your child is making a mess with his food, he’s learning a lot about the food and what soft solids do. He’s learning how to think. Yes, he’s getting it everywhere and naturally you want some of that to go inside his tummy. But being obsessive over cleanliness in the high chair might actually inhibit learning.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.

Last week, we talked about lying to kids, including lying to deflect questions about events children might find upsetting. You can read that article here, but basically I advised parents to be honest with their kids, since they will likely find out the truth anyway. Better to hear the worst from you.

What if your children are not little kids, still living in a protective bubble, but teens or preteens? Older children are more worldly-wise and they quite quickly see the implications of distressing events. They quite quickly assign blame, ask penetrating questions, and imagine outcomes. They get angry. They tell their friends. They may react with depression, anxiety or violence.

You want to protect your children. You want to keep even your older kids convinced of their safety and your ability to control a situation. But they’re too smart for that. They know too much. When things spin out of control in your life, how can you keep it from spinning out of control for your teen too?

You cannot control all things. How your teen reacts to bad news – news about divorce, relocation, job loss, serious illness, or death – depends in large part on the teen’s own personality and reaction style. You’ve lived with this person all his life and you know how he tends to respond to things. You can prepare for his reaction but you cannot change his preset pattern.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions for telling your teen bad news.

1. Find the right time to talk. If you can, this will be a time when there aren’t any distractions and both you and your teen are in a decent mood and aren’t feeling hurried. But don’t wait for the perfect time. Act soon. The longer you wait to break the news to your teen, the more likely someone else will tell her first, and the more likely you’ll lose your nerve and not tell her at all.
2. Be direct. The quicker you get to the point the better. A bit of an introduction is needed, to clue your teen in to what you’re going to talk about. Saying that this news might be difficult to hear is also good, so your teen has a few seconds to get emotionally prepped. Say, “Derek, you know Dad’s been having a rough time at work lately. I have some bad news about that…”
3. Say what you need to say, then stop. Let your child talk. Let him ask questions, which you will answer honestly. Let him get upset. Let him cry. It’s okay if you cry yourself. Once you’ve broken the bad news, the natural response is emotional. Sit together with this news until he seems to have reached a quiet point.
4. If there is more bad news to add, add it now. Say, “So… I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay in this house. We might have to move. I know that’s not what you want…” Be ready to listen again and help your child absorb this news. Depending on your child’s usual reaction patterns, he may end the conversation right now or he may be open to hearing more.
5. If your child storms out of the room, don’t chase her. If she says she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, respect that. Like anybody else, your teen needs some time and space to adjust to what she’s just heard.
6. If and when your child is open to hearing more, reassure him as best you can. Try to end on a positive note, even if it’s just to say, “We’ve weathered stuff before and we can do it again.”
7. If your child has suggestions, listen and respect those. Don’t dismiss your child’s efforts to make things right or argue with her. Like you, she is trying to see a future. Her ideas may not seem credible to you, but you need all the creative solutions and positive thinking you can get.  You both do.

Keep in mind that bad news is part of everyone’s life. You cannot protect your child from this but you can show him how to roll with the punches. How you share difficult change affects his happiness, your happiness, and your future together.

You can do this. Be sure to do it.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Dr. Anderson will be in Atlanta, GA on December 10 and 11, speaking at the National Head Start Association’s Parent Conference. Email her at [email protected] for details or to set up a presentation to your group in the Atlanta area on one of those dates.

Board games have long been thought to support young children’s math abilities. As they move a game piece along colored squares in a game like Chutes & Ladders, children practice counting. They not only use the names for numbers in order but also learn to associate just one square per number, and vice versa.

This is all good and true but a new study points out something I’d never realized, even though it’s obvious. Children who play these games only learn to count as far as the dice or spinner permits. They count the number of spaces they are permitted to move – from one up to maybe six or so – and then, on their next turn, start over again from one.

A report just released by Boston College and Carnegie Mellon University points out this limitation. Elida Laski, one of the lead researchers, says “We found that it’s the way that children count — whether the counting procedure forces them to attend to the numbers in the spaces of a board game — that yields real benefits in the use of numbers… What’s most important is whether you count within a larger series of numbers, or simply start from one each time you move a piece.”

In the study 40 children played a board game consisting of 100 spaces. First, children played the game counting each step starting from one on each turn. So a child who spun 5 on her first turn would move her game piece and count “one, two, three, four, five” and if, on her second turn she spun 3, she would move her game piece and count “one, two, three.” Then, children played again, this time counting from where they left off on a previous turn. In our example, the girl who spun a 3 on her second turn would begin counting from 6, the next number after the last number of her first turn. She would count, “six, seven, eight.”

This sounds a bit complicated and it is. And it is this complexity that expands children’s thinking and their understanding of numbers. Children who played the game using the “count-on” method were better able to use a number line, identify numbers and to count to a higher number than children who played the game using the “count-from-1” method.

What does this mean for you?

If you give a child a board game this holiday season, you might “enhance it” by numbering each space on the track. This will encourage children to play using the “count-on” method and will also reinforce what higher numbers, such as 16 or 25, look like.

If you don’t want to number the game itself, or if the game doesn’t use numbers (Candyland, for example, asks children to move to specific colored squares), then when you play with your child encourage him to count-on instead of count-from-1. This requires a child (and you!) to remember what number was the end number on the last turn, adding even more thinking.

If you have time over the holidays when the children are home from school, consider drawing your own racetrack game on a large piece of paper. Kids can color in the squares, make pitfalls and detours, and decorate the edges of the game board. Number the squares and move by rolling dice or drawing numbers from a jar. Use pennies, Lego or other small objects as tokens. Older children can spent a happy afternoon making their own racetrack games and playing with each other and their younger siblings.

Just remind them to “count on”! As Laski says, counting-on is “a simple way to enhance any game they have at home and still have fun playing it.”

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Dr. Anderson will be in Atlanta, GA on December 10 and 11, speaking at the National Head Start Association’s Parent Conference. Email her at [email protected] for details or to set up a presentation to your group in the Atlanta area on one of those dates.

If you haven’t yet been mortified by something your child says or does, just wait. It will happen.

Your child might throw a fit in the grocery store, even, perhaps, crashing a child-size cart into an end-of-aisle display, sending boxes of mac-n-cheese tumbling to the floor… as was recounted to me just this past weekend.

Your child might pipe up in front of an entire assembled group with a very vulgar turn of phrase he heard you use once – just once – and you feel all the adult eyes in the room searching for you as you try to become invisible.

Your child might make her entrance at Thanksgiving dinner wearing something… unusual… that she realizes you’d never approve, and your own mother glares at you from across the room, letting you know you’ll hear about how you’re raising your daughter as soon as dessert is done.

What do you do? How can you keep this sort of thing from happening?

Last question first: you can’t. You cannot keep your child from embarrassing you for two very good reasons. First, children realize early what buttons to push and they become masterful at pushing those, even seemingly in all innocence. We telegraph to our children what makes us most uncomfortable so that the source of our discomfort lodges in their heads. Like some intergenerational Freudian slip, what bothers us most is what our children will say or do.

Second, we are acutely vulnerable to being embarrassed by our kids because we can’t get past the idea that our children  represent us like little mini-billboards. We think that whatever our children do – the great things and the not-so-great things – sum up our skill as parents, our intelligence, our values, our worth. Try as we might, it’s hard to shake the feeling that our children are us and when they do something embarrassing, it’s as if we’d done it ourselves.

So what do we do?

The best and most important thing you can do is uncouple your own ego from your child’s. You and she really are two completely different people and what she chooses to do is her own decision, not yours. Feel free to be amused and amazed by your child but never believe you must feel embarrassed by her.

Realize that child-rearing is an ongoing, long-term project marked by great gains and unexpected setbacks. Yes, it’s your job to raise up your child in the way he should go but it’s unrealistic to think this is accomplished by magic, overnight. We all are a work-in-progress, children and parents too.

Notice that the result of this child-rearing process, if you do things right, will not be a clone of yourself.  You child is now and will become in the future a unique, independent person who will retain her ability to delight and exasperate you. Any person who is totally predictable and completely under the control of her ever-more-aging-and-set-in-their-ways parents is a person who has lost the best part of herself. You do not wish this fate for your child. Embrace her ability to be her own amazing self even if sometimes she makes you cringe.

And that person under control of others? You don’t want that for yourself either. Do not take your cues about when to be embarrassed from others who want to dictate your emotional state. Let them take cues from you! Laugh when your kid does something outrageous. Go ahead and roll your eyes and share a private oh-my! with the person next to you. If others see that you’re not bothered, they will be less bothered too and will be more able to put things into perspective.

It’s all about perspective.  Gaining the right perspective on a child’s behavior makes both you and him happier.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Dr. Anderson will be in Atlanta, GA on December 10 and 11, speaking at the National Head Start Association’s Parent Conference. Email her at [email protected] for details or to set up a presentation to your group in the Atlanta area on one of those dates.

A mother I know – she has children ages 10 and 5 – announced her intention to do a day-long “screen fast” this past Saturday. By this she meant no screens – no television, no computers, no game systems, no cell phones, no tablets – for anyone in the household from morning to bedtime. This included the two kids and both parents.

Just to be clear, the weather was not super in her town that day. And she is an entrepreneur while her husband works in software development. Both are used to being online or connected as part of their work responsibilities pretty much round the clock.  So a family screen-fast was not a frivolous undertaking. This was something serious.

This mother told me why she decided it was time to do something drastic. The previous weekend she’d noticed how much time everyone was glued to one screen or another. If the kids weren’t playing soccer or in the car getting to soccer they were screened-in. And the adults were just as distracted. This mother said she noticed that both she and her hubby would surface when spoken to, pulling themselves away from their handhelds, eyes unfocused, minds clearly somewhere else, to mumble an answer… and then change their answers in a minute or two when their brains caught up with the questions.

Does this sound familiar? Is this how your family too spends a lot of its free time together?

The mother also said she noticed that by the end of the weekend, everyone was crabby and irritable but in too much of a funk to do anything about it. The best way to keep people from quarreling was to park them all in front of a DVD in the evening. More of what had aggravated everyone already…. It didn’t feel right. She knew something had to change.

On screen-free Saturday, there were no screens in use. The family baked, played board games, took a walk, cleaned the family room, and read.  They did things together and on their own. They just didn’t turn on anything with a screen.

The result? Calm, happy children and adults. A reconnected family.

Could your family go cold-turkey on media? How would this work?

1. Get the adults on board first. A no-media day won’t work if the grown-ups don’t play along.
2. Tell the kids at least one day ahead of time about the screen-fast, more if someone might have homework to do that requires a computer. Not only is fair warning a courtesy but fair warning means that people can complete key screen activities in time for the fast.
3. No excuses and no cheating. This might mean that screens are unplugged and the power cords disconnected from computers and game systems. Hide the remotes. Squirrel away the handhelds. Get the kids to help with securing screen-based machines so no one is tempted.
4. Have things planned to do. This is a good day to clean out the garage, make cookies, and play games. It’s a good day to go for a hike, read, write, and do art. Again, get the kids to think of things to do and lay in supplies.
5. Stay cheerful. You might be surprised that you experience more withdrawal than your children do. If you or your children get to feeling down, don’t just sit there, do something. Being busy will improve your mood.
6. Congratulate everyone at the end. This might be a good night to eat out or have a fancy dessert. Just don’t eat in front of the TV!
7. And then agree on the next challenge. When will the next screen-free day be? Could you stretch it to two days? An entire week? Keep a media-free day in the back of your mind as you plan your children’s winter break from school. Slotting this early in the vacation time gives you a chance to do it again before school resumes.

A media-fast is not something to do every day. But once, or once in a while, makes a good break and forces everyone out of the mental rut they may be in. It’s good to know that one can survive an entire day with no screens.

It can even be fun!

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Dr. Anderson will be in Atlanta, GA on December 10 and 11, speaking at the National Head Start Association’s Parent Conference. Email her at [email protected] for details or to set up a presentation to your group in the Atlanta area on one of those dates.

A lot of parents sleep with an infant in the bed. One recent study found that 41% of mothers always or often sleep with their baby, and another study found 70 to 80% of parents share their bed with a baby or child.

The reason is obvious to anyone who remembers life with a newborn. Co-sleeping may be the only way exhausted parents get any sleep at all. Instead of getting up to feed or comfort an infant every two hours, a new mother can nurse her baby right in bed, without even fully opening her eyes. Advocates of co-sleeping believe that babies who sleep in their parents’ bed sleep better, are calmer, and gain weight more quickly.

But pediatricians and public health officials warn against co-sleeping. Some of (but not all) SIDS deaths in 2010, for example, occurred when babies were sleeping with adults. Doctors are quite reasonably concerned. However, telling parents “not ever” to bed-share cuts off conversation about safe ways to sleep with an infant if that’s what parents want to do. It makes moms and dads hide their family’s sleeping arrangements and that may keep them from learning key tips.

So, in the interest of child safety and parents’ rest and sanity, here are some co-sleeping tips:

1. Both parents should agree to invite baby into their bed. Only if both mom and dad are happy with this arrangement can it be certain that both parents will follow the rest of the safety tips.
2. Neither parent should go to bed intoxicated or otherwise impaired. This means that parents should not be under the influence of sleeping pills or other medications that make them groggy.
3. Second-hand smoke represents another risk factor for co-sleeping babies. Second-hand smoke is a known SIDS risk and parents who smoke bring  smoke particles with them wherever they are. The risk to a baby of second-hand smoke increases when in close proximity to a smoker for the entire night, even if the parent never smokes in the bedroom.
4. Obesity is another parent characteristic that argues against co-sleeping.
5. Sleep surfaces should be firm and flat and placed so that the baby cannot be trapped between a parent and the wall. Bedding should be minimal. Keep babies away from pillows and on top of blankets, not under them.
6. Just as in her own crib, a co-sleeping baby should sleep on her back.
7. If you are not breastfeeding, put your baby to sleep in his own bed. You have to get up to bottle feed him anyway.

Bed-sharing has been shown to make breastfeeding more successful and to promote regulations of infant breathing and body temperature. Done right, co-sleeping may actually protect against SIDS. Certainly, down through human history, bed-sharing has been the norm.

This may become an issue in your own household, as your infant grows into a toddler and then a preschooler. Without an exit-plan, you and your partner may find that co-sleeping has become the norm for your children. Kicking them out and into their own rooms gets more difficult older the children get. An infant in the bed is one thing. A wiggly, squirmy, bed-hogging child or two is quite another.

If you decide to co-sleep your infant, your pediatrician may frown. The American Academy of Pediatrics is still dead-set against it. But at least you can be confident you’re doing bed-sharing right.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Dr. Anderson will be in Atlanta, GA on December 10 and 11, speaking at the National Head Start Association’s Parent Conference. Email her at [email protected] for details or to set up a presentation to your group in the Atlanta area on one of those dates.