A cooperative of four Minnesota school districts launched their Say Yes to No campaign last week.  The districts of Lake Crystal, Medelia, Truman, and Maple River gathered their parents, staff and community members together for kick-off events.   Around 250 staff gathered in the afternoon to hear a Say Yes to No presentation and that night 300 parents and community members gathered to hear what Say Yes to No is all about.  Follow up book reads and discussions are planned all over the four school districts.

I asked the teachers in the afternoon if anyone was surprised that the research shows that self-discipline is twice the predictor of school success as intelligence.  None of the 250 teachers were surprised.  A typical response was that “I’d much rather have a student motivated to learn, than someone smart, but who doesn’t care.”

I also asked the teachers who had been teaching for more than 10 years if it is more difficult to keep kids’ attention today than ten years ago.  Every one of these veteran teachers said “Yes.”

The principals knew that parents were concerned when over 300 people showed up that night.  Parents know that something is out of whack, that their children are distracted.   Say Yes to No struck a chord with these parents, as it is in other communities.   Many of them said they were going to try the “Marshmallow Story” with their own kids.   Self discipline is a key character trait that leads to success in school and in life.  Self discipline helps kids stay on task, helps them finish a task, stay focused, be engaged, take on a challenge, make better decisions and resist the siren call of entitlement: “Gotta have it and gotta have it now!”   Parents who say “no” and use the parenting skills of No are re-discovering parenting strategies that work.

Dr. Dave

This week brought the end of a long, hard fought election campaign.   I, like most of you, was glued to the screen, following the ups and downs of each reported return.   The new media was hopping at our house Tuesday night.  We had TVs, computers and cell phones all spouting returns at the same time. 

When all was decided, I heard a theme, cited by both President-elect Obama and Senator McCain, and echoed on the newscasts.  Our economy is a mess and hard times lurk right around the corner.   The only way out of this situation is for the American people to pull together, make the hard choices and do the hard work it’s going to take.  It amazed me as this theme was echoed by commentator after commentator on the various networks we watched.  The conversation about our national purpose is changing.

I began to wonder if a speech writer hadn’t been involved in one of our Say Yes To No campaigns.   What was really being called for was self-discipline.    The character trait our kids need if they are going to be successful in school and in life.   Self-discipline enables a child to finish a task, put in the hard work needed for practicing a skill, choose work when needed over play, set and accomplish a goal, work independently, work with a group, and enjoy a reward well-earned.  Self-discipline ensures that a child’s self-esteem is built on real accomplishments and the satisfaction of a job well done.   Parents and teachers have been joining Say Yes to No book reads and conversation groups, learning how No gives their kids the gift of self discipline.

Do you have a Say Yes to No story to share?

Dr. Dave

If we were ever wondering about the power of the new media, we have to look no further than this current election.  Voters in unprecedented numbers have taken to the Internet via computers and cell phones to participate in this election in a way never seen before.  From fundraising, to YouTube videos and text messaging, people have created media and influenced news in a powerful new way.  

The immediacy of this media is apparent when billions of people are updated at the moment, before the headline reaches the TV anchors or newspapers.   Campaigns and news outlets have had to adjust to the fact that once their news or campaign videos hit the Internet, videos are cut up, re-worked, and re-used in ways out of their control.   The average voter is in control of content more than ever before in history.

I’ve often said, “Whoever tells the stories, defines the culture.”   The new media has opened the door to powerful new storytellers: you and I.  It’s more important than ever before for people to be Mediawise®.  Rumors fly faster than it takes to hit the enter button.    Videos hitting our emotional centers in the brain make us laugh out loud or tug at our heartstrings.  Mediawise participation with this new media gives us the skills to use all of our brains to make judgments based on the facts and thinking part of our brains along with the emotional centers.  Responsibility is a key Mediawise skill also.  This new media can inform, entertain, and sway our vote, but it can also hurt and demean when used by adolescent cyber-bullies.

I wish I could say that when the votes are all tallied on Tuesday, that we could sit back and reflect on the wondrous new landscape this new media has brought us to, but unfortunately reflection is hard in this split second world.   Reflection is also one of the old media traits we should hang on to.

How has the new media changed the way you get news?

Dr. Dave

There are so many obvious benefits and opportunities in our media world today that I hate to keep sounding the siren call for balance.  Amid all the new technology, we shouldn’t forget that kids’ brains are busy wiring in behaviors.   The wiring of a child’s brain is entirely experience dependent.  Wiring of behavioral and thinking skills will not happen automatically – it happens because of that child’s experience in his or her environment.  To have a fully rich, thinking brain, a child needs exposure to a broad range of experiences that call on him or her to exercise all their thinking skills.  Remember the “neurons that fire together, wire together.”  The ones that don’t wither away.

Now what got me started?   A new study from England landed in my email box that found that the study group of fourteen year old kids today were better at the quick-fire, instant response answers than fourteen year old kids were in 1976, but when it keep to deeper thinking, problem solving, the 1976-ers beat today’s kids hands down.

What’s changed?   Probably the most obvious is the media world our children live in.   What experiences are kids having that are wiring their brains more than anything else? - the quick fire responses of video games.   And if they do not have problem solving experiences requiring more in-depth, complex skills, then those skills will never wire into their brains.

I am not anti-video games.   What kids need though is balance.  Interactive media can take over kids’ lives and make them very skilled at quick responses.   Critical thinking skills that take deeper, more complex thinking may deteriorate if we don’t give our kids practice in these skills also.  The future will belong to creative problem solvers, not to people who deal in only superficial facts.

How do you think kids can develop more complex thinking skills?

Dr. Dave

I recently received an interesting letter from a middle school math teacher.  A few years ago this teacher did an informal survey of his students.  He wanted to find out how many of his students had TVs in their bedroom and other media habits.  What he found correlated with the national average: approximately 2/3 of his students had TVs in their bedroom and 1/3 did not.  Then he went to his grade book to calculate mean grade point averages for each group.  The non-TV in the bedroom group had a grade average of 3.2, the TV in the bedroom kids had a grade average of 2.3.   Now on the surface it looks like kids with TVs in their bedrooms do poorer in school.    Which on the whole I think is true.  But there is a bigger lesson in this little informal study and this teacher went on to find it.

He looked at his most successful students, including those in an honors math class.  What he found was that irrespective of whether they had a TV in their bedroom or not, (although most did not), these kids had parents who said “no”, put limits on their kids media use, enforced homework time and a regular bedtime, and had high expectations.  Unsuccessful kids, also irrespective of bedroom TVs, tended to spend little or no time on homework, frequently stayed up past midnight, excessively played video games, and heard “no” from parents much less frequently, if at all.  He found that many of these kids could succeed, but lacked motivation and the self-discipline needed for school success.

Now researchers could immediately poke a thousand holes in this little study, but that’s not the point.  This teacher resonated with the Say Yes to No message because of what he sees in his classroom every day:  the values of More, Fast, Easy and Fun have, for many kids, overtaken the character traits of self-discipline and the ability to say “no.”   This teacher is worried not only about individual kids’ futures, but our country’s future also.

Dr. Dave

A study published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that the Internet and cell phones, for many families, bring them closer together.   Even a decade ago we would say good-bye to each other in the morning and not see each other until the evening to catch up on the day’s news.   Today, this is more and more a rare occurrence.  Texting, voice mail, Twitter, and email all enable us to have instant contact with those we love.

For couples, being able to have touchpoints during the day and being able to keep connected with busy schedules is a life-saver.  We wonder what we did before cell phones.   For kids, with their still developing brains, this explosion of ways to keep in touch not only with their parents, but more importantly, for them, with their friends is nothing short of a miracle.  Used to be you had to fight for time on the family phone, leashed by a cord to a wall.  Now communication is anytime, any place.  What’s not to love?  The number one reason parents buy a cell phone for their child is for safety, so they can connect any time they need to.  Does this bring families closer together?  Of course it does.  If I’m talking to my child several times a day, even by cell phone, that certainly makes me feel closer.  I can ask who they are with, what they are doing, and where they are.  The old late excuses don’t work any more.  You can always call.   

When does cell phone use for kids stray into the gray zone?  Do kids really need to text message?  Should they have access to their cell phone any time of the day?   Cell phones, like anything else costs money - money that the parent spends now, but also money that someday the child will have to pay.  Once time and money is involved then responsible use is the goal.   Installing controls on a child’s cell phone to limit use will help that child develop the self control necessary to keep that child from being overwhelmed by the “need” to call.   Limiting the number of text messages also prevents kids from getting their brains hooked into impulsive texting.

Do you have controls on your child’s cell phone?  What are they? 

For more information see our Parent Guide to Cell Phone Use.

Dr. Dave

Compulsive video and computer game use sparked a spirited interchange on the Dr. Phil Show last Monday.   Concern about violent video games showed how addiction turns many relationships into a train wreck.  Our MediaWise® work here at the Institute was cited as a leading resource for parents, especially on how violent video games and addiction affect children’s brain development.

Real life folks painfully paint stories of relationships on the rocks because video games or the computer have taken over a person’s life.  When the game is more important than the people or the job, school or other responsibilities in your life, then addiction is the problem.  Intervention with a real honest assessment, perhaps with professional help, is needed.   This is why it is so important for parents to carefully teach their kids self-control when it comes to video games.  Limit their use.  Help your kids to be able to say “no” and choose another activity.   Good video games are fun and they can be highly addictive for some kids.  If kids don’t develop the self control they need when they are young, it may be impossible for them to say no when they get older and on into adulthood.  At that point relationships, jobs and school are at risk.

If you or someone you know is at risk see our resources for video game addiction.

What rules do you have for video game use in your home?

Dr. Dave

Say Yes to No book reads and campaigns are popping up around the country and we, at the Institute, are often not even aware.  I was in St. Louis, MO this week, talking to educators, social service people, doctors….people who are concerned and work with kids.   At the community night in Clayton, a community just outside of St. Louis, I found out that their Say Yes to No campaign was soon kicking off and book reads were scheduled around the community.

“Is it too late?”  This is a frequent question of parents of teens.  One parent with a fifteen year old daughter told me she gives her daughter whatever she wants.  I asked her: “If your daughter gets whatever she wants now, what will happen to her when she is out on her own?  Are you preparing her for life?”   The mom responded, “No and  I am going to have to change some things, if she’s going to be able to cope.   Is it too late?”

My answer was that it’s never too late.  It’s easier for you as a parent and for your child if you start when they are young – but it’s never too late to help your child learn the character skills he or she needs to be a successful, independent adult.   

With a teen, you need to do some planning, goal setting, and have lots of conversations.  Think of the top three areas where you need to say “no.”  Write down your reasons for saying “no.”  The top reason might be: “I’m not going to continue giving you everything you want.  My job, as a parent, is to prepare you for the real world and the real world will not give you everything you want.”   A helpful activity to do with your child, is to list all the things your child wants and then talk about and decide which of these things are real needs and which are extras.   (And just because everyone has them or it’s “in”, or popular, does not make it a need.)   The extras can be saved for a future birthday or holiday gift, or your child might need to save up for it.  Doing this will help your child learn to say “No” to themselves.  In their future, it might save them from running up mountains of debt on credit cards and financial ruin.  Our current national financial mess has its roots in too many people not being able to say “No” to themselves.  It’s a character trait that has to be learned.   

Dr. Dave