Sleep Better!: A Guide to Improving Sleep for Children with Special Needs

Sleep Better!: A Guide to Improving Sleep for Children with Special Needs by Dr. V. Mark Durand Ph.D.

A lot of the challenges with sleep can be solved in a fairly straightforward, though counterintuitive method. If somebody has trouble getting to sleep, it often works to gradually wake them up earlier and prevent them from napping. Many other fixes require similar gradual changes. Sleep drugs are often not helpful. They can also lead to addiction and get adaptation. Caffeine consumption can often lead to headaches in the morning. The book itself seems to be fairly repetitive, with practices repeated in different sections. There are a few anecdotes with different people and their challenges. Some were interesting, such as the woman who would "sleep eat" when she was supposedly on a diet.

Who Was Rosa Parks?

Who Was Rosa Parks? by Yona Zeldis McDonough

I did not realize that Rosa Parks had a backstory of fighting for rights. There were other black people who failed to give up their seats for whites on Montgomery busses. However, they did not resonate with the general public the way Rosa Parks did. She was an educated, upstanding citizen. She had also worked behind the scenes for civil rights. The bus boycott and fame were challenging for her and her family. Eventually she moved to Detroit with other family members. 

This book is a quality, short introduction to her life and the background of the bus boycott and civil rights movement. It is somewhat sad that it was transportation that was attacked. In the name of improving civil rights we ended up hurting our transportation system. (Next step would be to bulldoze black neighborhoods for freeways.)

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

Parents have become extremely protective of children's physical activities, but allowed them free reign on the internet. Girls tend to be driven to social media. Boys to videos and video games. Kids don't have as many experiences, nor take as many risks in the real world. However, they suffer more in the virtual world. The solutions include limiting kids access to internet and screens. Smart phones should not be had until later ages (like high school.) Social media should also be postponed. 13 is too young of an age. And younger children often fake the age. Kids should be given more opportunities to interact and take risks in the "real world". Can we really spin back the digital invasion that has negatively impacted the lives of children?

The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys

The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys

In the 1950s, a not-yet five year old girl was abducted from her family and then hauled away to die in the jungle. She encountered a group of monkeys and came to live with them. They helped her to find food and survive in the wilderness. However, she was still drawn to humans. She encountered a group of natives and tried to join them. They told her to leave, so she continued to live in the jungle. Later she saw female hunter with her male companion. She presented herself to them. They eventually took her (along with the other animals.) They sold her to a woman that we later learn ran a brothel. She gradually learns to undo her "monkey" habits and act more like a human. She eventually escapes to live as a street child. Her monkey skills help her out with the life of petty theft. She tries for respectability, but that ends up with trapped in different areas (including working for a crime boss.) She does escape, lives in a convent, escapes from there and eventually makes it to live with a family in Bogota. The book ends there, though there from her biography, we learn she eventually married and moved to England. The story is told very much from her point of view. She has the naive view of a child, and gradually learns the ways of the world.

Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids

How much of what parent's tell kids is actually true? Ken Jennings sought to find out the truth behind many things he had heard parents say. Some things are blatantly false with a difficult time finding any truthiness. Most things have some bit of truth to them, but don't really matter today. (Outside-latching refrigerators and radiation-emitting TVs have been out of production for half a century.) Sometimes the grain of truth was actually used for war propaganda. (Carrots do have Vitamin A. A total absence of vitamin A can lead to vision problems. However, almost nobody suffers from this today. Carrots benefitting vision was spread as British propaganda to lead the Nazis away from the path of radar.) There are also things that really are true. The book is a good "fact checker" for passed down parental wisdom.

Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Totto-Chan is a free-spirited little girl that is a teacher's worst nightmare. She is delighted by the world around her and easily sidetracked. Even when obeying rules, she will do it in a way that drives the teacher crazy (such as repeatedly opening and closing the desk to complete small tasks.) She is kicked out of her her school and required to go to a new school. Luckily, she ends up at Tomoe Gakuen, with headmaster Mr. Kobayashi. He listens to what children have to say. He gives them the freedom to explore their interests. There are various rules and rituals that the students buy into. The school also includes a diverse group of children, including some with various deformities and disabilities. The children all learn to respect each other while learning academically. Alas, world war 2 intervenes and the school is destroyed. The child-focussed instruction by the headmaster remains as something that inspired his students.

The Me, Me, Me Epidemic: A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Capable, Grateful Kids in an Over-Entitled World

Me, Me, Me continues on with many of the same points of the author's previous book. The goal is to empower children to make good decisions that help them and society in the long run. To enable this, the parent needs to start be spending time with the child ("mind body and soul time"). Then there must be clear boundaries, together with plenty of opportunity for children to make good decisions for themselves.
She spends time analyzing "privilege". People are concerned about having benefits that were not due to their own work. She even thinks she got privilege from her degree - even though she spent great effort to obtain it. This is again, a modern liberal view. The "disadvantages" focus on certain "key" areas, but ignore other things. Why should we even try for equality? The diversity of genetics make people differently equipped for different tasks. (Short people are inherently disadvantaged as basketball stars.) Upbringing also is an important benefit. Historically, wealth and position were passed down through generations. Even without that, the upbringing lets people have more experience and training in certain areas. Denying this can limit the possible growth of society.
For money, the book advocates a "no strings attached" allowance is a way to encourage kids to manage money. The book advocates encouragement rather than praise and encourages empathy. It also encourages empathy with kids. They need to have intrinsic motivation to do what is right. They also benefit greatly by having the opportunity to fail while they are young rather than when they get older.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

The key to having an emotionally intelligent child is emotion coaching. This often involves empathizing with children when they are having strong emotional fillings. They need to understand that it is normal to have feelings, but that they need to learn to act appropriately. It is, however, not appropriate to engage in emotion coaching all the time. If a parent has an urgent need to attend to, a child can sense that he is not getting full attention. Similarly, when the child is engaging in poor behavior, the behavior must also be addressed. Emotion coaching makes sense, but properly carrying it out in the heat of the moment is a challenge.
The book provides some tips on emotion coaching as well as ways to assess the style of parent you are. Some of examples of parenting types seem counter-intuitive, but do make sense when looked at in detail. It is also important to assess the behavior towards others in the family. Parents tend to suffer greatly when parents undergo divorce. However, it is often the fighting and lack of empathy in unresolved conflicts that are the issues. The actual separation is just a small add on to the otherwise poorly modeled behavior. Children need to feel that their parents empathize with their struggles. Parents should not belittle things that the child feels are important. The parent should also help children to make the decisions on their own. That is how they build experience and learn how to manage their strong feelings.

Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World

Empathy is a key to raising a child today. How do we help children to develop empathy? The book provides a number of anecdotes (often in a classroom setting) showing how the research on empathy can be put in practice. Empathetic Children have a moral compass and think of "us" instead of "Them". They work for the betterment of everyone. Alas, there is a great tendency of children to focus on themselves and seek after their own personal desire fulfillment. It can require a lot of work to help teach them empathy.
The Epilogue contained a few points that had proven successful for teaching empathy.

• Be friendly
  
• Break Down Barriers
  
• Give Kids a Voice
  
• Play Chess and Unplugged Games
  
• Create Parent Support Networks
  
• Build Caring Relationships
  
• Don't Give Up.
  

Working towards increasing empathy is a long process. Different children may respond differently. (Though how they respond may be surprising. A baby can help bring out empathy in groups that you would not expect.) This book provides some research and toolbox to help achieve greater empathy.

Nurtureshock

Nurtureshock analyzes some trends in child-rearing and refutes many commonly accepted notions. They use scientific studies to refute fads (which were started in part due to other scientific studies.)

One section talks about praise. It was assumed that praise helps kids to succeed, while criticism causes them to fail. However, it turns out that it is how it is done that is more important. Praising a kid for being "smart" will often cause them to give up earlier rather trying hard to learn difficult subjects. Praising them for being a hard worker is more likely to encourage additional hard work. Similarly encouraging them to analyze areas and self-improve will produce better results than simply praising for good work.

There is also plenty of analysis of our educational system. Gifted programs and private schools often use a cognitive test on young children to grant admission. However, these are very poor predictors at young ages. Programs also lack mechanisms for kids to "leave" the program. (What would happen if they just assigned random people to be "gifted".)

Early preschool programs are also shown to have minimal long-term impact. In the short-term, preschoolers see improvement. However, this improvement tapers off in the long term. (This is likely a case of confusing cause and effect. Kids that attend preschool tend to have more supportive parents and thus perform better.)

Lack of sleep has been shown to have an extremely negative impact on younger children and adolescents. However, in an attempt to help them to succeed, many parents are overscheduling their children, reducing sleep.

The analysis of spanking best encapsulates the book. Studies have shown that spanking has a negative impact on children. However, studies among black and evangelical Christians show no negative impact. It seems that if spanking is a normal part of the culture, it is ok. However, if the parents view it as a negative aberration, it is bad.

TV and media also have an unexpected impact. Some violent shows show a small increase in physical violence among children. However, peaceful "educational" shows such as Arthur often show an even more dramatic increase in negative relational behavior among children. They see the negative behavior modeled and duplicate it (yet don't grasp that they are actually supposed to be following the "solution" not the negative behavior.) These even extends to books such as Berenstein Bears that are supposed to be teaching positive traits, but spend much of the time modeling the bad trait.

There are many studies about raising children out there. However, children are a diverse group. What works for one may not work for another. There is also the matter of understanding the details. Fads often attempt to find the key "thing" that helps produce great children. However, it is often a complete package that is needed. With children it is often the case that "positive characteristics" and "negative characteristics" run perpendicular rather than on a continuum. Kids may have a lot of a "bad characteristic" as well as a lot of its "opposite". Increasing the good may not reduce the bad.

Perhaps using "instinct" to parent is not so bad after all - as long as it has not been corrupted by scientific studies.