Night is Day and Day is Night: Parenting Bloggers and the Media

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: March 15, 2010

The way that conventional media thinks it can best reach parents is through presenting what’s wrong–the latest tragedy, crisis or failure. The way that parenting bloggers say they want to be reached is through being inspired.

The way that conventional media thinks it can reach parents is through “what’s new.” The way bloggers say they want to be reached is through ‘what’s real’–’what’s authentic.’

The New York Times published an article about mommyblogging today that captures many of the acknowledged good points about parenting blogging- the community, the support- and furthered many of the stereotypes behind mommyblogging- that many just do it for the pageviews, or potential sponsorship. I’m in the middle of launching a new parenting book in today’s media landscape, and I see clearly an often unstated reason why parents love to blog: to create their own narrative of the struggles and joys of parenting.

We are clearly the midst of an upheaval in communicating with parents. The underlying assumptions of conventional media and the influential parent bloggers who represent the views of millions of other parents seem to be worlds apart–day is night and night is day.

Now granted there are legions of bloggers who write about parenting and legions of media outlets and within each there is huge diversity. But a three-hour conversation with a group of leading Mommy Bloggers in Washington last Thursday, March 11th, provided a stark contrast between the two worlds.

My book, Mind in the Making, will be released in five weeks. This book is a tour of the latest research in how children learn best and how we can keep the fire in their eyes burning brightly by developing life skills. As my daughter says, it unlocks the doors of academia by taking us into the labs of scientists conducting actual experiments (in addition to the book, the experiments were video taped and there will be a video book–a Vook).

This book was written with the online community commenting throughout and I sat together with social media leaders in Washington DC to talk about what parents want online.

We said to them–you are hugely influential and get lots of people approaching you these days. What drives you crazy? That was enough to spark a wide-ranging and insightful long conversation:

I dislike parenting just being seen as Moms. There are Dads too.
I hate the crisis or problem approach. Don’t tell me how I have it all wrong. Inspire me. Be positive.
I hate being approached as if I am just a Mom and all I am interested in whether or not my kids “poop is purple” or how to get kids to sleep through the night. Moms are smart and we want to be approached as smart people.
There is a big hole. Most of us have moved beyond the feeding, diapering stage but then most parenting information drops us. We want conversation and guidance about growing a person.
I hate the assumption that parenting is black and white and whatever happens is your fault. The blame-game. OVER!
I hate being approached as if parenting is a competition–it is you against others.

One of the bloggers asked where each of them gets parenting information.
Mainstream media? No because its approach is what they just said they don’t like.

Word-of-mouth and blogs? Yes.

Facebook? Yes.

I countered: Lisa Belkin of the New York Times’ “Motherlode” told me that if she uses the word “guilt,” her readership goes way up.

We all know that true confession and being snarky goes on in blogs, big time. But still another bloggers speculated:

I think a guilt backlash is coming in parenting. We do feel insecure at times, but we are sick of the Super Nanny approach. We are looking to be connected to others, to give and take, and not just be told.

Are these bloggers right? I came home and saw the mere shadows of what used to be huge magazines and newspapers on my kitchen table and was again convinced that these bloggers are on to something important. I’ve been in the parenting world for more than three decades, and I’ve answered countless parenting advice columns in magazines and newspapers. Things are different now. We are in a transition and perhaps conventional media should listen to what these parents say they want and experiment with providing it.

Okay: Parenting Bloggers weigh in, please!

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Posted in Blogging, Lisa Belkin, parenting, social media | 1 Comment

Ellen Galinsky: “We have seen a real change in both women and men.”

By FWInews | Published: March 10, 2010

Here is Ellen Galinsky on PRI’s The Takeaway

Since December 2007, seven million jobs have been lost in our country, and the majority of those who’ve lost their jobs have been men. At the same time, females have been returning to the workforce in higher numbers than their male counterparts, and more and more women have taken on the role of primary breadwinner for their families.

Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, shares her research on how this gender disparity in employment numbers affects workers and household economics.

Listen here.

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Notes from the White House on May 8, 2010: International Women’s Day/Women’s History Month

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: March 9, 2010

Cross posted on The Huffington Post

Former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright wore a pin symbolizing breaking the glass ceiling but the question that hung in the air at the White House celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month on March 8th was: what does it take to bring about change for women and girls. President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary Albright all said what we know to be true—that we don’t want our daughters to have fewer opportunities than our sons. But what does it take for that knowledge to become reality?

If there was one answer in the celebration, it was: it takes our grandmothers; it takes our mothers; it takes our daughters; and it takes us. In other words, it takes real experience in confronting challenges and then it takes real experience in facing down these sometimes quite harsh challenges to take on challenges and ignite change.

The President retold the story of what ignited his own feelings for this issue—of his mother who fought for injustice overseas and of his grandmother who worked her way up from a secretary to the vice president of a bank, “only to watch as men, no more qualified than she was, rise up the corporate ladder.”

Madeline Albright concluded her comments with the well-known poem, Low Road by Marge Piercy. It message is that with one person, “you can fight…but they roll over you.” Two people can “keep each other sane, can give support, conviction.” Three people form a “delegation;” four “can start an organization; a dozen make a demonstration; a hundred fill a hall.”

As the program closed with a searing song about violence against women by Afghan singer Mozdah Jamalzadah, the message of the event was clear—change takes experience, change take conversation.

And speaking of conversation, almost everyone in the rows around me was bent down looking at their BlackBerries or their iPhones. Were they tweeting about the event or were they keeping up with their own conversations on email, even at the White House?

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Kids Directing Air Traffic Control: What’s the Story?

By Lois Backon | Published: March 8, 2010
I was on the treadmill, after listening to The Today Show’s 7:00 AM opening.  The lead story was about the Air Traffic Controller who brought his 8 year-old son and 8 year-old daughter to work with him, two nights in a row.  The children took the microphone, and with their Dad’s instructions, communicated with pilots and cleared airplanes onto the runway for take-off.  As usual, after the story was presented, two pundits were on the show- one taking the position: what the father did was not the smartest move, but not terrible.  The other pundit found the father’s actions despicable, and said he endangered lives.

Now, many of you might be thinking, wow, that makes me nervous to fly!

But as I watched the story unfold, and through the lens of the skills of perspective taking and making connections, so many questions popped into my mind.  What was the father’s situation at home that he needed to bring his children to work with him?  The news reported stated that this occurred during their winter vacation from school.  What are the work life policies of the FAA?  Did the dad not have any other childcare options? Is there a clear policy that states whether or not a child can accompany a parent to work?  Was the father in violation of company policy?  What do parents do when their kids are on school breaks, and they need to be at work, and they do not have childcare coverage And finally, isn’t it kind of cool that this story is about a FATHER who brought his kids to work with him?

Certainly, having kids in dangerous work situations is not to be recommended. But it’s important to always look at a whole story. Things are never one-sided, and I would have loved to know more about the dad’s motivation. Did he think it was good training for his kids, or did he have no other options?

Work-life professionals, I’m curious to hear from you. What would you say to the Dad or his supervisor?

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Posted in Child Development, Families, Flexible work, Men/Fathers | Leave a comment

Dual-Income Parents: The Exhausted American Middle

By Morra | Published: March 4, 2010

I posted this on BlogHer.com this week.

Woman turning off alarm clock

Back in the mythic 50s and 60s, housewives like Betty Friedan and Betty Draper were very bored. The Feminine Mystique opens with this description of an average housewife’s day: “Many women no longer left their homes, except to shop, chauffeur their children or attend a social engagement with their husbands.”

Contrast this to the average day of 2009’s Janice Ramos, featured in Joan Williams and Heather Boushey’s new study, “The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict.”

Janice Ramos is a married, 30-year-old registered nurse who lives in a home she owns with her husband, a technician, and two children, an eight-year-old son and a 14-month- old baby. She works the night shift so she can be home with her kids during the day. Her husband, whose shift starts at 9:00 a.m., gets the children up and fed and takes

the baby to a neighbor’s and the older child to school. Janice arrives home at 8:30 a.m. after they have already left. She sleeps for five hours, then picks up the baby and meets her son at the bus stop around 3:00 p.m. She spends a few hours helping with homework and playing with the baby, and then goes to sleep when her husband returns from work around 5:00 p.m. She sleeps until 9:00 p.m., when she leaves to arrive at the hospital at 10:00 p.m.

Ramos is part of what Williams and Boushey call the “missing middle.” These parents, writes Lisa Belkin, are working “highly supervised jobs that often leave them one sick child away from being fired”; these are “Americans who are neither rich nor poor,” and “have a median annual income of $64,000, earning between $35,000 and about $110,000 a year. Their median income has fallen 13 percent since 1979 (in inflation-adjusted dollars).”

The middle is 53 percent of Americans, but the authors say because they are not as vocal and visible as professionals, the infamous “opt-out” group, or as desperate as the poor, they receive the least attention and even less help.

Time is a finite resource. Think of our lives are pies: pieces are divided between work time, home and family time and personal time. Cali Yost explains that conflict arises when our work and home time demands become so great that we simply run out of time. This is the state of many Americans.

Reading the “Three Faces” report is eye-opening and extremely sad because work-life conflict among all income levels is so pronounced. I was most struck by the phenomenon of “tag-team” parents like Janice Ramos in our new two-worker norm. In the study, exhaustion is a common theme of life in the middle. One parent says, “My daughter always wants to do things with me, but I’m too exhausted.”

Lisa Belkin wrote, “Is work-life balance a luxury? In many ways, yes. Only those with both financial security and some control over their work lives have the freedom to recalibrate it.” Williams and Boushey’s report makes it clear that for married couples, time together as a family is a luxury, much less time for oneself. They also note that tag-team couples are between three to six times more likely to divorce.

Which leads me to the political hypocrisy of our legislators (almost everything I read these days leads me there). The U.S. is hostile to creating federal legislation that supports family-friendly workplaces — and it is this legislation that would help the tag-team parents, those caught in the middle.

Legislation that does exist helps poor women with childcare subsidies. Wealthier women can make more choices about their work and family lives. In either instance, as Williams and Boushey note, “The problem is viewed as not the lack of adequate public policies but rather the personal choices of a small set of mothers who are in families that do not look like most U.S. families. Politicians have actively used these narratives to reject moving forward on a work-family agenda.” Meanwhile, the majority of U.S. families soldier on, with little money, time or breathing room to spare.

Even more ironic?

“Nearly 60 percent of mothers in the middle work full-time or more, but only 42 percent of low-income mothers do. Both parents work full-time or more in more than half — or 51 percent — of all middle-income families as compared with only 15 percent of poor ones. The percentage of full-time work is slightly higher in professional-managerial families —- 57 percent -— but they can do all kinds of things to make life more workable.”

I’m a lucky professional example: The more money I make, the more money I willingly spend to outsource as much as I possibly can.

Families in the middle also pay more, percentage-wise, for childcare than do poor families or those at the top:

In March 2009 dollars, low-income families pay around $2,300 a year per child for childcare for children under age six —- about 14 percent of their income. Families in the middle average $3,500 a year —- six percent to nine percent of their income. Professional families pay about $4,800 a year —- three percent to seven percent of their income.

Read the rest at BlogHer.com.

Today, an email from MomsRising really hammered the point home:

“My husband and I have to work opposite shifts because child care is unaffordable. He works from 6am to 2:30pm, and I have to meet my husband at his job to drop off our son so that I can be to work by 3:00pm. I miss out on putting my son to bed.” – Kristina, MomsRising Member

Are you part of a tag-team couple? How does it affect your life?

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Reducing Aggression in Children

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: March 1, 2010

This article is cross posted on The Huffington Post.

Last week, I wrote about preventing aggression in young children, but what about reducing violence when it has already flared up.

Several years ago, Families and Work Institute (FWI) conducted a nationally representative study of young people in the fifth through the twelfth grades on this issue. Our findings—as always when we study young people’s views—were surprising and enormously helpful.

We found that although much public discussion about aggression has focused on extreme violence, such as school shootings, the largest proportion of young people talk about teasing that goes beyond being playful; about cruel put-downs and gossip; and about rejections as very real aggression to them.

This emotional aggression is very much a part of young people’s lives. In fact, two-thirds of young people (66%) have been teased or gossiped about in a mean way at least once in the past month and 25% have had this experience five times or more.

This is not to say that other kinds of aggression are unimportant—almost one third (32%) has been bullied at least once and 12% have been bullied five times or more in the past month; 46% of young people have been hit, shoved, kicked or tripped at least once and 18% have experienced this five times or more in the past month. Finally, one in 12 has experienced extreme violence.

Young people focus on emotional aggression as the trigger for other kinds of aggression—and this insight is echoed in the seminal studies of Larry Aber of New York University.

Aber has been especially interested in aggression in younger children because it can escalate into to greater aggression during the teen and adult years—and interfere with children’s learning. He wanted to know: What are the roots of aggression in children? When in a child’s life is aggression likely to flare up? Does it continue to escalate or can it be prevented? If so, how?

Aber says that there were twenty years of attempts to improve children’s “repertoire” of problem-solving skills. Did these efforts yield results? Yes, but “only a little bit,” Aber says. So the question became why.
Building on the work of Kenneth Dodge of Stanford University, Aber and his colleagues began to probe what goes on in children’s minds when they are provoked. They asked children how they would respond to an ambiguous hypothetical situation—such as one child bumping into another in a school cafeteria and spilling a drink on the second child. Which children would decide to “push back harder?” And which children would decide to use other problem-solving skills and why?

They discovered a missing link, a link they call “an appraisal process.” In the spilled-drink scenario above, for example, the child who has been bumped makes an immediate assessment of the situation: Was this an accident? Maybe this kid doesn’t like me? Maybe this kid is trying to hurt me?

For the children who assume that others are out to get them, having skills to handle conflict are relatively worthless because they have a bias to attribute the action as hostile—even when there isn’t enough information to be certain. They jump to conclusions. Given this insight, efforts to curb aggression in children of all ages have moved to include what Larry Aber calls “attributional retraining;” that is, helping children step back when something happens to them and make sense of the situation.

Aber and his colleague have evaluated several school-based approaches to curbing violence, most recently a curriculum in the New York City public schools, called Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution. This program doesn’t separate teaching children to handle conflict from other kinds of academic teaching. Each unit is based on a children’s book selected for its literary quality and its relevance to the theme. Through discussions, writing exercises, and role-play, children explore the meaning of the book, learn how to appraise complex situations, and then are taught how to resolve conflicts in these situations.

The early results of this research are very promising. Children are less aggressive and the reading scores of those most prone to behavior problems have improved.

What are the implications for parents? For me, it is promoting the life skill of perspective taking in everyday situations with our kids. Whether we are talking, watching television or a movie, or reading books with our kids, ask them to think about the perspectives of the characters in the story: What are they thinking and feeling? Why are they acting as they do?

In FWI’s study of young people, young people told us again and again they wanted help, especially to stop the “mean behavior” that goes on everyday. In the words of one young person, “if we are part of the problem, then we need to be part of the solution.”

This research gives us the tools to help young people be part of the solution!

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Posted in Bullying, Child Development, Mind in the Making, School violence, parenting | Leave a comment

Preventing Aggression in Children

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: February 24, 2010

Since the days when my children were little, child development researchers have made great headway in understanding the genetic, biological and family triggers of aggression. There have also been new and much more sophisticated studies on how to prevent aggression or reduce it, if it has already flared up in children.

A new study by Colleen O’Neal, Laurie Miller Brotman and their colleagues at the New York University Child Study Center and by Daniel Pine of the National Institute of Mental Health, just published in Child Development, is adding to that literature.

If asked when my son was little, I would have told you he was prone to aggression—his temper often seemed like unexpected bolts of lightening from a clear sky. Those days are long gone for us—he is an incredible man, but I always read the research on aggression with a deep interest. What could I have learned if I had been the parent of a young child with a temper today? What might I have done?

The group that O’Neal and their colleagues studied could be considered a worst-case scenario for aggression. They went through the court records in New York City for youth under the age of 16 and selected families where there were young siblings. They then followed these four-year-old children and families over a 24-month period, during which time the families and the children participated in a program to improve parenting practices and preschoolers’ social competence. Among their numerous findings, three stand out to me as of greatest interest to parents.

First, the parenting program worked—it did reduce aggression. Specially, it helped parents be less harsh, be more consistent, be less critical of their children, and use positive methods of managing their children’s behavior. I know this sounds obvious, but if you have ever been confronted with nonstop aggressive behavior in a child, what we know we should do and what we are tempted to do can be quite different! The desire to be positive can easily evaporate and the desire to retaliate can be powerful. This study adds to a large body of literature that says that time-outs are more effective than harsh and punishing discipline.

The second important finding is that parental warmth makes a major difference. Children are less aggressive when their parents are warm and caring. This parenting program helped the parents become warmer. The researchers measure parental warmth by observing parents and children together. They assess whether the parent holds the child close and shows physical affection; talks with the child and answers the child’s questions; helps the child succeed at what he or she is trying to do; and acknowledges the child’s success.

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Posted in Child Development, Early childhood, Families, Mind in the Making, Minds in the making | 1 Comment

Updates on the Science of Children’s Development: A New Study by Annie Bernier, Stephanie Carlson, and Natasha Whipple on How Parents Can Help Young Children Gain Life Skills

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: February 17, 2010

Cross-posted from the Huffington Post:

I have spent the past eight years reading child development research, interviewing leading scientists, and we have even filmed these scientists as they conduct their studies.

I have been driven by the question: what can we learn from studies of child development that will help our children thrive now and in the future?

As the parent of grown children and as a professional in child development, I have the time and knowledge to understand this research and I have the passion to translate it for all of us.

I have put many of these lessons learned into my forthcoming book, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills that Every Child Needs, to be published in April by HarperStudio.

But there is always new research and we continue to go out and interview and film these studies. So this begins a new series of blogs where I will share what I am learning.

I am excited about a new study, just published in Child Development. In this study, Annie Bernier of the University of Montreal, Stephanie Carlson of the University of Minnesota, and Natasha Whipple of the University of Montreal look at what parents can do to promote young children’s “executive functions.” Executive functions involve being able to pay attention and focus, to hold different ideas in our minds at the same time, to think flexibly, and to have the self control to inhibit our tendency to go on automatic but instead to do something that furthers a goal we have. My eight years of looking at research have convinced me that executive functions are involved in the life skills that I see as most essential to our children thriving, now and in the future.

First, how did these researchers measure executive functioning in children at 18 and at 26 months? They played games with the children. For example: they hid an attractive sticker under one of three colored pots in full view of a child and asked the child to find it. Then they made that task harder for older children, by covering the pots with a blanket, or even by moving the pots around, while they were covered by the blanket—a more difficult game of “hide and seek.” All of these games involve focusing and remembering more than one thing at the same time.

Another way the researchers measured executive functioning was by having the child first feed a mommy doll with a large spoon and a baby doll with a small spoon and then asking the children to switch—to feed the mommy doll with the baby spoon and the baby doll with the mommy spoon. That task calls on children to inhibit what they have just learned and do the opposite (they have to have the self control to go off of “automatic” in pursuit of a goal).

The researchers had a number of important findings. For example: they found that sensitivity matters—understanding what your child is trying to say to you in actions or in words and responding in a caring and warm way.

They also found that talking about what the child is thinking and feeling matters too—giving children a window into understanding “minds at work”—their own and others. This is as simple as saying: “you seem to want that book,” or “looks like you’ve had enough.”

Of greatest importance in this study is supporting children to be more autonomous. The researchers measured this by giving young children puzzles that were challenging and then videotaped mothers and children working on the puzzles together.

The mothers who helped the children most:

  • Structured doing the puzzle so that the challenge was appropriate and not overwhelming to the children;
  • Encouraged children as they worked on the puzzle, giving helpful hints and suggestions, using a tone of voice that communicates “I am here to help”;
  • Followed the children’s pace, gave children reasonable choices for how to work on the puzzle (“would you like to try the blue piece next or the red piece?”), and didn’t take over and finish the puzzle for the children—but helped the children do it themselves.

In Bernier, Carlson and Whipple’s puzzle game, mothers are helping their children cope with a slightly challenging situation—not by taking over—but by helping children find their own ways of managing the challenge. They are also promoting their children’s focus and self control.

Many of you reading this will probably say, “I do this with my kids.” You may not have known how important it is. In fact, the small things we do everyday with our children help them build the life skills so that they can thrive today and for many tomorrows to come.

What do you do to help you children manage slightly stressful situations more autonomously and in the process, build their skills in focus and self control?

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Posted in Child Development, Early childhood, Mind in the Making, Minds in the making, Research, Women/Mothers | Leave a comment

Listen to the “What Kids Really Think About Their Working Parents” Podcast

By Morra | Published: February 10, 2010

Great discussion with Ellen Galinsky, Lisa Belkin, and Dr. Joshua Coleman: click here for the podcast. (Note: the Talkshoe service doesn’t like Firefox, for some reason. If the link doesn’t work, try another browser. Sorry).

Lisa Belkin blogged about the show here. For highlights, check out the live Twitter feed on Fem2pt0, with good quotes, including:

# Coleman: Don’t think about “fixing” your kids. Focus on what brings you meaning and value. #worklife #moms #fem2

RT @ellengalinsky: RT @morraam: Thats what I would term my generation “Caught.” #fem2 #worklife #families #fem2

RT @mgyerman: #fem2 Constant worry about messing kids up and making every second a “teaching lesson” is futile. #worklife #fem2

What constitutes an attractive man? There’s now a lot of confusion around this question. #worklife #moms #dads #fem2

Today, more dads now home with kids, but for the WRONG REASONS – the current economic collapse. #worklife #dads #moms #fem2

Women’s high-standards, playing gate-keeper…Huge obstacle to moving to more even labor division #worklife #moms #dads #fem2

Galinsky: New parents start out wanting to be perfect, then evolve to wanting to be good enough. #worklife #moms #fem2

RT @mgyerman: When old family structure broke down, people turned to parenting advice books. Now, they use the internet. #worklife #fem2

And my favorite, Dr. Coleman paraphrasing Jung: “Jung: Nothing effects children more deeply than the unlived life of parents.” One of the biggest gifts we can give their children is a happy fulfilled life for us as parents and people. Thank you Joshua Coleman!!

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Posted in Child Development, Early childhood, Economy, Families, Flexible work, Men/Fathers, Mind in the Making | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Do Kids Really Think About Their Working Parents? Tune in Wed. 1pm to Learn

By Morra | Published: February 8, 2010

This Wednesday, February 10, 1 PM EST, join us on Talkshoe.com, as Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute and author of Ask the Children and Mind in the Making, moderates a discussion with Lisa Belkin, New York Times writer and author of the Motherlode blog on nytimes.com, and clinical psychologist Joshua Coleman, author of The Marriage Makeover and The Lazy Husband, and co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. This program is part of a great blog talk radio series from Fem2.0.

When both mom and dad work, it can complicate parenting and marriage. We will talk about the impact of social pressures and media coverage on working couples and their children, what the research tells us, and what we can do to make things better for both kids and their working parents.

For more information on this and other work-life radio programs, click here.

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Posted in Child Development, Early childhood, Economy, FWI news, Families, Flexible work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment